Lucy Benezet Minns, the Irish junior women's road race and TT champion, has announced herself on the international stage today with an incredible performance in the junior TT at the World Road Championships in Stirling, Scotland.
Riding her first ever TT at this level, Benezet Minns caught the two riders who went off at one-minute intervals ahead of her to post the 4th fastest time of the day. She was just seven seconds off the bronze medal.
While Darren Rafferty placed 5th in the U23 men's TT for Ireland yesterday, he was expected to be among the best, but the result by Benezet Minns today effectively confirms, for the first time, that she is a world class talent.
“It was pretty good. I went out pretty hard, I was a bit worried I had over cooked myself! I think the course suited me with the kicker at the end as well," Benezet Minns said. "I thought I had gone out too hard but in hindsight I did pretty good job pacing, and I had nothing left but that’s the way you want to finish.
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“I’ve only done one UCI time trial so far this year and that was on a course that didn’t suit me, and it was my first time ever riding that bike so, but yeah it’s really good and hopefully I can come back next year and to get a better result which would be great.”
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Ireland's Aine Doherty, another rising star of the home scene, was also in action today and she put in a very solid performance - her first international TT - to place 33rd.
The world title was won by Australia's Felicity Wilson-Haffenden, who clocked a time of 19:31 for the 13.5km course. The 18-year-old was 16 seconds up on silver medal winner Izzy Sharp (Great Britain), with Federica Venturelli (Italy) claimed the bronze, some 29 seconds down.
Then came Ireland's Benezet Minns, the 17-year-old first-year junior finished 4th at 36 seconds. Her compatriot, Doherty, who is also a first-year junior, was 33rd at 2:19.
More to come.
