Irish international road and track rider JB Murphy is set to make his debut in the pro peloton tomorrow at Continental level with Irish team EvoPro Racing, The 22-year-old is part of the team line-up that will take on Ronde van Drenthe (1.1) in the Netherlands.
Murphy has been very successful on the domestic road scene in Ireland since his junior days and rode for Spanish team Arabay last year. His biggest successes have come on the velodrome.
In 2017, in what was his first trip to a proper velodrome, he took a bronze medal in the junior points race at the World Track Championships in Italy, which he added to an elimination race silver from the European Championships in Portugal the previous month.
Last year a claimed bronze medal in the scratch race at the European Track Championships in Switzerland; his first medal at elite level. He also competed in the Tour de l'Avenir on the national team last season.
Advertisement
Related News
With Murphy in the EvoPro line-up tonorrow are fellow Irish riders Conn McDunphy, the former elite Irish TT champion, and Daire Feeley, who is back with the team after two years racing at home, topping the A1 rankings in both seasons.
The Irish trio will be joined by Welsh rider – and Team GB team pursuit international - Rhys Britton, Belgian Maarten Verheyen, American Eamon Lucas, who has been a prolific winner on the elite scene in Belgium, and French rider Dylan Guinet. The man who would have been the team’s designated sprinter, Mickey van Staeyen, is out with a knee injury.
It is the Irish team’s second race of the season in Europe after they took on Grote Prijs Jean-Pierre Monseré (1.1) last weekend. EvoPro Racing is currently running a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to continue operating. A planned arrangement for Cycling Ireland to fund an academy for a group of young Irish cyclists within the team has been scrapped.
Tomorrow’s race is known for the number of kilometres of Drenthe cobblestones; a total of 12 cobblestone lanes, totaling about 18km. Also included in the course is the Col du Vam, a man-made climb created specifically for bike races and which must be negotiated five times tomorrow.
“We’ll be especially concentrated at good positioning and making the moves in and out of each cobblestone section,” said team co-founder Morgan Fox. “Hopefully luck is on our side and we can avoid mechanicals as there’s no let-up in this race and once you flat you can end up in a group out the back.”
