Felix English (left) of Rapha Condor JLT - guesting for a local team in Australia at the weekend - at the head of affairs with Michael Matthews and Baden Cooke of Orica GreenEdge.
By Brian Canty
Former national criterium champion Felix English has started his now customary pre-season racing spell in Australia in superb fashion, nicking a couple of primes in a race regarded as one of the country’s toughest crits.
The St Kilda LSL Lanyon Super Crit in Melbourne attracted many of the world’s best sprinters, with Orica GreenEdge bringing a star-studded line-up that featured former Milan-San Remo winners Matt Goss and Simon Gerrans and Vuelta stage winner and former U23 world champion Michael Matthews.
Emerging U23 star – and eventual winner - Caleb Ewan won the race to pocket himself a tidy €2000 (out of a sizeable chunk of the €17,500 prize pot) but English also walked away with almost €1,000 after snatching two primes worth just under €500 each; Aus $750 each.
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The Irish road and track international, with the help of teammate and fellow Irish international Jack Sadler wasn’t fazed by the quality in the field and was active right from the drop of the flag.
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English forced his way into a couple of early moves in front of a huge crowd in the suburb of St. Kilda outside Melbourne.
The race was 75 minutes long with 10 primes up for grabs and English clearly showed he’s in good form by taking two of them.
The 21-year-old will spend the next couple of months along with his Rapha Condor-JLT teammates in the town of Bendigo, around 100km north of Melbourne.
They will train for the upcoming Herald Sun Tour and Bay Crits which start on New Year’s Day.
Other members of the UK-based Continental squad will join those currently in Australia on December 27th. English and Sadler guested for a local team in St Kilda to ensure all the Rapha riders in Australia who wanted to ride secured a starting slot.
That’s a great start by English and while it is very early days to be predicting what might happen when the European season starts, he has clearly carried through some of the condition from his 2013 campaign in the UK.
He took a number of wins this year in major pro criteriums, with a purple patch during the summer months ensuring something a breakthrough period for him. That progress suggests his speed and confidence are continuing to improve and look set to land him some big victories.
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