Fiona Meade sprints to stage victory at An Post Rás na mBan last year. The US racing scene should be right up her street (Photo: Lorraine O'Sullivan - Inpho)
Irish national road race champion and An Post Rás na mBan stage winner Fiona Meade has secured a promising offer to race in the United States for much of the coming year.
The Cork woman, who currently rides for Blarney Castle CC, will join up with the Fearless Femme cycling team.
She will depart Ireland around the Easter Bank Holiday weekend to commence her programme of racing.
Meade will mainly compete on the criterium circuit in the US but will also ride a number of other races, though they are yet to be confirmed.
In time trial action last year; Fiona Meade could move herself into the reckoning for national selection for the Worlds with some good rides in the US (Photo: Lorraine O'Sullivan - Inpho)
Advertisement
Related News
It is expected she will return to Ireland to defend her national title in June and go back to the US to finish out the season.
It’s a superb change of direction for Meade who has long been one of the real soldiers of domestic cycling, often competing – and beating – her male counterparts.
Meade enjoyed a fabulous 2014 season, winning the green points jersey at the An Post Rás na mBan and no less significantly, the Irish national road race title.
Before she departs for the US as she will take a sabbatical from her day job as a physiotherapist in Cork to get in as much training as she can.
Riders from Meade's new American team, the Fearless Femme.
She appears to be going well having won the Kay Stratton Memorial in Blarney recently; the first race of the national league.
The move to the US could potentially give her a shot at making a national selection or two before the year is out, with the World Championships in Virginia in late September now expected to be a real goal.
She becomes one of several Irish to race in the US in recent years, with Mary Costelloe, the aforementioned Dillon and Mel Spath among those who’ve been based there at different times.
Topics
