Aged 16 years, Liam O'Brien is on top of the world; a new national champion and hoping for a World Championships debut. He is a rapidly emerging talent that Irish cycling has snatched from the grasp of swimming and triathlon.
The Cork teenager late last summer won the Irish U16 criterium title and since then things have gone into overdrive.
On Sunday he won the Irish junior title, at the first time of asking, at the National Cyclocross Championships in Armagh. That gold medal, in epic conditions that saw the rides soaked in cold mud, comes during a winter of great progress.
Fermoy CC rider O'Brien has ventured across the Irish Sea to Britain for National Trophy races and has also gone on several weekends to Belgium to race there; banking incredible experience.
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He gained selection for the junior race at the European Cyclocross Championships in the Netherlands in November; placing 19th despite starting at the back of the grid.
The youngster credits coach Andy Layhe for guiding his training and general development into the junior ranks. He said Layhe's involvement always went far beyond the coach-rider relationship, with constant pre and post-race calls and traveling to see his riders competing on the top of all of his regular coaching duties.
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O'Brien has been racing since he was aged nine years but did not compete anywhere outside Munster until he was aged 13 years. When he was very young he was more interested in athletics, swimming and triathlon. He regularly got into the top five in national level underage events, also winning some regional races.
"I didn't really follow up with the cycling back then because there was a lot of travel involved for very short races," he told stickybottle. "But with the triathlon, you are doing all three (sports) and you get more out of it for that time you spend traveling to the races.
"I will still do some swimming but I was asked to go to training for swimming six days a week and I didn't do it because I had just started to fall more in love with cycling. We started getting longer races and I was traveling more to races, even up to Ulster. And then at the Nationals when I was U13 I was 4th and I started training after that."
His first Irish title on the bike came last year when he took that gold in the U16 criterium at the youth championships in Gorey, Co Wexford. That was a step up from the two silvers, in the TT and road race, he had won as an U14 in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.
On Sunday he went to Armagh as one of the clear favourites for the gold medal and he didn't disappoint. O'Brien was gridded at the front, with eventual silver medal man Travis Harkness (VC Glendale) taking off like a rocket from the start. While that put Harkness ahead as the riders approached the first mud section, O'Brien was right behind him.
Harkness had a few seconds in hand when they hit the first corner they had to dismount for and run around; the eventual winner taking the lead at that point and hitting it hard from the front. He told stickybottle he put an extra effort to go "full whack" down a few descents and then settled into his own tempo.
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That pace he tapped out at the front was relentless; putting 30 seconds into the next riders on the opening lap and then rounding the next three laps an average one minute faster than his closest rivals. He won ahead of Harkness, with Niall McLoughlin (Westport Covey Wheelers) in 3rd.
"I knew Travis was my biggest opponent; he's a good technical rider," said O'Brien, adding when on the switchback parts of the course he could look across and see Harkness was the only rider close to him.
"And then everyone on the course was telling me time gaps; loads of people were shouting out. I wasn't putting pressure on myself, I was just doing the best that I could."
O'Brien said he has really enjoyed the move up to the junior ranks during this cyclocross season, tough he insists he hasn't had it all his own way.
"The first few races; I found them hard to be honest. I'd never raced in big numbers like that. But after the first few, I was enjoying the bigger numbers and you make sure you keep trying to move up," he said.
The trips he has made to Continental Europe and the UK for some cyclocross races in recent months have proven a great learning curve and brought on his racing, he said.
"Before the Euros, the only place I had raced abroad was the UK National Trophy; that was my first ever racing abroad ever. It was about getting used to the number of riders you are racing against.
"At home you might be racing against three other juniors but when you go away it's 60 or 70 juniors. And when you get those numbers its hell for leather for the first corner, that type of thing. Then to come back and win the national championships…. you know, that was just the icing on the cake for me," he said.
Leaving Cert and cycling
For now he is firmly fixed on both cyclocross and road goals and he is very hopeful of being selected to ride the junior men's race at the World Cyclocross Championships in the US at the end of this month. His nationals win and 19th in the Europeans, from the back of the field on the grid, suggests he will be picked.
O'Brien is currently studying for is Leaving Certificate and is a student in St Colman's College in Fermoy. He has squeezed in his trips to Europe and to UK National Trophy races at weekends and in a manner than has not cost him school time.
And while he plans to continue racing and training during this Leaving Cert year, up to and through the exams in June, he says he also wants to get good grades. So he will likely limit himself to races close to home as the exams get nearer.
If the domestic racing scene returns to normal this year after the Covid-19 interruptions to the last two years, O'Brien is eyeing a feast of challenges; first on his list a crack at the Junior Tour of Ireland.
"And there's also the Junior of Wales, so hopefully I can do them after the Leaving Cert, and go to Belgium to race later on in the season. And then I'd love to go to the World (Road) Championships; if I could make that team, hopefully."
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