Irish rider Greta Lawless showed plenty of ability, and real character, to overcome being gridded at the back of the field in the girls MTB race at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Maribor, Slovenia, to make the top 10. Dubliner lawless - coached by off-road legend Robin Seymour - said the race, run off in the rain, was the hardest she had ever ridden.
Her top 10 place, against the best international MTB riders from across Europe, followed 24 hours after Co Louth's Conor Murphy took a fantastic silver medal in the boys TT. Those successes follow Aliyah Rafferty being chosen to be a flagbearer for the Irish team at the opening ceremony.
Lawless finished in 10th place, from 24 finishers, with a time of 57:57 yesterday. She would have done even better but for her gridding at the rear of the pack, which forced her into a process of picking off those ahead from the start of the race.
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“(It's) the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, it kind of felt like home nearly with the rain which was kind of good for my head at the start as I felt more relaxed," she said. "I started second from the back on the grid.
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"It was hard to get through all the people but on the first climb I started to pass out a good few, I was really going for it. I honestly left everything out there so that’s all I could really do, I’m really happy.”
Lawless said having three-time Olympian Seymour - a former road, MTB and cyclocross international - in her corner in the build up to the Youth Olympics was a big asset.
“I was messaging him last night and he was just reassuring me, during the race I was thinking about him cheering me on, I couldn’t get much better of a coach,” said the Team Worc teenager.
Murphy followed up his silver medal TT ride on Tuesday with 21st in the boys MTB race yesterday. That result - given his level and his record on the mud in Ireland and Britain in recent years - was something of disappointment. His efforts were badly undermined by a crash on the first lap, though he regrouped and battled on.
“The race just didn’t go as planned, I got around and still finished so I’m pretty happy, but it could have been better," he said. "I had a crash on the first lap that had me too far back to recover, a few small things with the bike as the chain kept dropping. It just wasn’t my day, but you can’t win every day.”
