A new U23 development team, comprised almost exclusively of Irish riders, will be in the domestic and European peloton this year, and with ambitious plans from the very start of the campaign.
Backed by a cycling business in Portugal, and run by a former pro rider, VeloPerformance should put up a significant challenge on home roads, working as a unit, considering the young Irish riders it has signed.
And though we should see plenty of them on home roads, they will be competing in European UCI-ranked races as our road race season starts. It has also secured places in some of the biggest U23 stage races in the world in the months ahead.
The team has signed Michael Collins, Eoghan Lattimore, Conor Prendergast, Cal Tutty, Willem O'Connor and Hugh Butler. They are joined in the seven-man line-up confirmed to date by Portuguese rider, João Francisco, who was 4th in Portugal's national junior TT championships last year.
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Collins last year won a stage of the Junior Tour of Ireland, an event that Lattimore also excelled in. Prendergast has been one of the top junior talents over the last couple of seasons, though a nasty training ride crash interrupted his progress last year.
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Tutty has been a regular feature for the Irish junior team in the last couple of years and rode especially well in Portugal in 2024.
Willem O'Connor, like many of the others on the team, has gained considerable international experience over the last two years racing abroad with the Tarrant Skoda Munster junior team, while Hugh Butler joins from UCD Cycling Club.
The team's sponsor, and under whose name - VeloPerformance - it will compete is a cycling tours, holidays and coaching company based in Portugal run by Iúri Jorge, a former Continental rider turned coach.
In the first two weeks in March it will race in Greece, riding the two-day Visit South Aegean Islands Tour (2.2) followed by the one-day Rhodes Grand Prix (1.2) and the four-day Tour of Rhodes (2.2).
The team will also ride Trofeo Piva (1.2U) in Italy on April 6th followed by Dornan Rás Mumhan in Kerry at Easter. A week later, on April 27th, it will complete in the Cicle Classic in the UK, followed by two races in Norway; Sundvolden GP (1.2) on May 10th and Ringerike GP (1.2) the next day.
Then the team's attention turns to Ronde de l'Isard (2.2U) in France, from May 21st to 25th, where the Irish will line up at what is one of the hardest and most prestigious U23 stage races of the year. This will be followed by the Tour of Małopolska (2.2), a four-stage event in Poland, from June 5th.
