Liam O'Brien has had a season of significant progress with Lidl Trek Future Racing and the now the Cork man is ending his 2025 campaign with a well-deserved call-up to the Lidl Trek World Tour squad.
He is riding alongside Jonathan Milan, Carlos Verona, Patrick Conrad, and others, as he takes another step towards what looks like a certain permanent step up to the World Tour, just like felllow Irish U23 Jamie Meehan did with Cofidis this year.
As O'Brien's team is the feeder squad for Lidl Trek, he is eligible to be called up to race for the World Tour team in any event apart from World Tour races. And he commenced an end-of-season stint with the World Tour team at Gran Piemonte (1.Pro) in Italy 10 days ago.
He placed 58th in that race - after 179km to Acqui Terme - some 4:24 down on race winner Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates XRG) on a day when there were 79 finishers from 140 starters.
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O'Brien has since moved on to Japan with the Lidl Trek World Tour team and earlier today he rode the Utsunomiya Japan Cup Criterium. The 33.8km crit was won by his team mate Milan, with O'Brien 77th at 35 seconds and Meehan placing 64th at 24 seconds.
Both Irishmen will also ride the Utsunomiya Japan Cup Road Race tomorrow, Sunday, which is the main reason much of the European peloton has decamped to Japan so late in the year.
The race is a 1.Pro and unfolds over 15 laps of a circuit, with a climb each lap, for a total race distance of 144.2km. The climb is 4.7km in length, averaging 3.5 per gradient, and while it is not overly steep, the field always splits to pieces.
That kind of racing can favour riders like O'Brien and Meehan, who are strong climbers, especially if they manage to get up the road as breakaways have made it all the way in the past.
