The Irish track team completed their first Nations Cup event of the season in Glasgow at the weekend, with Mia Griffin putting in a very strong display and almost winning the opening event of the omnium and going on to lead the competition at the halfway point.
Griffin took on the four-race omnium, comprised of the scratch race, tempo race, elimination race and points race, all in the evening session on Saturday.
She got off to a flying start by taking 2nd in the opening scratch race. It ended in a tight bunch sprint with the Irish woman just being beaten on the line by French rider Clara Copponi – who competes on the road for FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope and won silver in the madison at the Worlds last year.
Griffin put in another very solid performance in the tempo race, where she took 5th place. At that stage of the competition – with two races of four completed – the Irish rider had 70 points and was leading the event.
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However, she came a little unstuck in the elimination race, where she was eliminated early; placing 18th. She then rounded out her effort with 12th in the points race for 7th overall in the competition. That was a strong result at this level on what was the Kilkenny woman’s first omnium at a Nations Cup.
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Kelly Murphy – who raced as part of the team pursuit line-up on the opening day – was also in action on Saturday in the individual pursuit. The Irish champion clocked a time of 3:29.278, some 4.805 down on fastest qualifier Mieke Kroger of Germany.
That time – a little slower than the 3:29.510 Murphy did last summer to set a new national record - put the Irish rider 9th of the 21-rider field, which was not enough to progress to the next round of the competition.
On Sunday, Conor Rowley made his UCI Nations Cup debut for Ireland in the sprint event. He clocked 10.178 in the qualifier, which unfortunately was not enough to advance to the next round.
In the omnium, JB Murphy was 12th in the scratch race, 13th in the tempo race, 19th in the elimination race and 22nd in the points race for 17th overall. In the women’s madison, Emily Kay and Alice Sharpe were victims of one of the many crashes during the event, but battled on to take 7th.
On Friday, Emily Kay and JB Murphy were both in action in the elimination races, with both riders qualifying from their heats; 5km for women and 7.5km for men.
Kay was 3rd in her heat and Murphy was 8th in his heat. In the final, Kay placed 12th of the 23-rider field. The race was won by Japan’s Yumi Kajihara, a silver medal winner in the omnium at the Tokyo Olympics.
JB Murphy was 12th in the men’s 24-rider final, which was won by Ineos Grenadiers rider Elia Vivani, representing Italy, and the reigning world champion.
The Irish campaign opened with the team pursuiters - Alice Sharpe, Emily Kay, Kelly Murphy and Mia Griffin - breaking their own national record in qualifying but not advancing to the medal ride-offs.
