The Irish track team will be in action again this week at the Tissot UCI Nations Cup in Cairo, Egypt, as the men and women in green continue hunting for vital points towards qualification for the Paris Olympics next year.
The nucleus of the squad is the team pursuit line-up and having demolished their own national record at the Nations Cup meeting in Jakarta last month, the Irish women will be looking for more in Cairo, with racing due to commence tomorrow.
Alice Sharpe, Mia Griffin and Lara Gillespie are all now riding for some of the best teams in the sport on the road while Kelly Murphy, a pursuit specialist, continues to knock out impressive results every time she rides the individual pursuit at this level.
Given the road racing opportunities now on offer to the three of the riders, and the fact they have clearly stepped up a gear of late, they and their Cycling Ireland coaches will believe they can take another big step forward in the weeks and months ahead, with no better time and place than Cairo this week.
Advertisement
Mia Griffin, for example, has already ridden a series of major races on the road this season with her new World Tour team, Israel Premier Tech Roland, including Strade Bianche, the Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
Related News
Gillespie has also commenced racing with her new trade team, UAE Development Team, taking 2nd place on debut with them in Croatia last week. Emily Kay has been missing from the team pursuit line-up of late as she is injured.
Erin Creighton (18) is included in the team for Egypt. It will be her second appearance for the senior national team, in her first season out of the juniors, as she also travelled to the Europeans in Switzerland in January.
The McConvey Cycles rider is in the process of breaking into the senior national team after a top performance last year at the junior Worlds, where she was 4th in the elimination race. She may have just missed out on a medal but underlined her potential with that ride; something the selectors also see.
In other changes to the Irish team for the Cairo meeting, Europeans bronze medalist from two years ago, JB Murphy, is back in the team. The squad's sole sprinter, Orla Walsh, will not compete with the Irish team in Egypt.
As well as the team pursuit (Sharpe, Murphy, Gillespie and Griffin), Creighton will ride the elimination race while Griffin will compete in the omnium. National road race champion, Sharpe, will team up with Gillespie in the madison. Murphy will compete in the men's omnium and elimination race.
