Cycling Ireland limits size of junior team at Euro Champs; U23 Dunne in TT action

Conor Dunne on his way to a decent, though not spectacular, result at the European Championships in Switzerland this afternoon.

Ireland's sole representative in the U23 time trial at the European Championships in Switzerland this afternoon, Conor Dunne has ridden his way to 22nd.

The Belgian-based Irish international who rides for An Post-Chainreaction is a former national U23 time trial champion.

However, he did not ride the national title race in Westmeath two weeks ago, opting to focus on the road race where he took the bronze medal in the U23 category.

On that occasion he missed the breakaway but rode strongly in a chase group and just passed Stephan Clancy (Novo Nordisk) in the closing stages to round out the podium.

Today in Nyon, Dunne relinquished 2mins 12secs to Swiss winner Stefan Küng, who whipped around the 26.9km course in an average speed of 47.6km per hour.

It was a decent ride by Dunne, but he is perhaps capable of a lot more.

The new U23 TT and senior road race champion, Ryan Mullen is a former silver medalist in the time trial at the Europeans, but he has opted not to ride in Switzerland.

Instead, he is preparing for the U23 European Track Championships in Portugal later this month. He collected two bronzes there last year and is a hot favourite to medal again for Ireland.

Next up for Ireland in Switzerland is the junior men's team in the road race tomorrow. That is made up of four riders; Eddie Dunbar, Michael O'Loughlin, Daire Feeley and Stephen Shanahan.