Ryan Mullen prepares for battle in the individual pursuit at Dublin's Sundrive Road today (Photo: Ronan Ryan)
By Brian Canty
Ryan Mullen heads for the European U23 Track Championships in Portugal tomorrow morning after a superb showing at the first UCI-recognised international track meeting in 50 years on Sundrive Velodrome, Dublin, today.
The IG-Sigma Sport rider won his first ever 4km Individual Pursuit, smashing by 10 seconds the stadium record held by Martyn Irvine.
Mullen, who only left the junior ranks last year, is being coached by Cycling Ireland head coach Brian Nugent and said the result gives him huge confidence for the week ahead during which he’ll ride the pursuit again on Tuesday, and the points race on Thursday, followed by the scratch race on Friday.
“Yeah pretty happy with the result,” said Mullen tonight.
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He was victorious in a field that included Andy Tennant, the 2005 junior individual pursuit world champion and gold medalist from the World Track Championships last year with Team GB in the team pursuit.
“I thought Andy Tennant would be miles ahead of the whole field. My main aim was to be around 5 or 6 seconds behind him. I thought that would be a fair target seeing as he's a former world champion. Obviously he wasn't on the best of days, however.”
Today’s meet was for qualification points for the World Championships next year. It was the first time in over 50 years that Ireland held a track competition that has been recognised as an international event by the UCI, and the hosts certainly didn’t disappoint on a perfect day for racing.
Teams from Great Britain, Holland, Belgium, New Zealand and Canada made the trip, and Mullen capped a memorable day for Ireland when he nailed the 4k, individual pursuit.
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“I've Brian coaching me now, he really knows his stuff,” explains Mullen.
“He was telling me my splits and from them I knew I was on for a good time. I actually felt great out there today and I remained smooth. My splits were consistent so I'm really happy. I've come on a lot in the last few weeks since working with Brian on the track."
"I took 10 seconds on Martyn Irvine's record, so that obviously indicates I'm on some pretty good form. I just hope I can hold it and do a similar ride in Portugal next week. I clocked a 4:40 on the outdoor track. I don't quite know what that equates to on an indoor track but I know it'll be a hell of a lot faster indoors. It’ll be interesting to see what I'm capable of. Because at this stage, I really have no idea!”
In the gold medal ride-off, Mullen faced off against Kiwi Michael Vink and beat him by three seconds.
“He was five seconds down on me after the qualifier, which I set the fastest time for. In the final we had a bit of a dual. He started clawing back at me with a kilometre to go. Luckily, I paced it pretty well and managed to open the gap up again come the finish to end up three and a half seconds up on him.”
On his chances in the coming week, Mullen isn’t playing them up, given he’ll be up against guys with far more experience.
“I've no idea what to expect really. I'm hoping for some good legs on the day. But at the end of the day I'm a first year and I'm up against guys who specialise in these events and who are 3 years older. It makes a difference.”
Mullen will travel with Nugent and Eoin Mullen to Portugal. The latter will take part in the sprints.
We will have much more from today's meeting.
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