Dylan Foley, Thomas Fallon, Jack Sadler and Mark Downey got Ireland's campaign underway at the Junior World Track Champs; with the young make and female riders gaining invaluable experience as they and Cycling Ireland build for the future.
By Brian Canty
The Irish junior track squad and their management team arrived back in Ireland on Monday following a first appearance at the World Championships in four years.
The event, held in Glasgow from last Wednesday to Sunday, can only be viewed as a step in the right direction for Ireland ’s future stars who coped well with the demands placed upon them in what was a gruelling schedule.
The team of Dylan Foley, Thomas Fallon, Jack Sadler, Matt Doyle, Mark Downey, Hayley Priestley and Rachel Mellor took part in a total of 11 events over the five days.
In fact, the Irish team got the championships underway last Wednesday morning when they were the first team on the boards for the Men’s Team Pursuit where Foley, Fallon, Downey and Sadler flew the flag.
The quartet finished in 13th place from a strong field of 19 nations in a time of 4mins and 23 seconds.
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Cycling Ireland head coach Brian Nugent said afterwards he was very pleased with how they rode, considering they were so new to the event; a very technical discipline of track racing.
Australia won the gold medal in a time 4mins and 6 seconds from New Zealand in second and Russia in third.
Also on day one, Rachel Mellor made her debut in the scratch race final but following a lightning fast race, she was listed as a DNF.
Day two saw Dylan Foley and Thomas Fallon ride the qualifying rounds of the men’s individual pursuit, with Foley off first against Michael Dessau of the USA .
Unfortunately for the Corkman he wasn’t at his best and was beaten by just over a second. But Fallon had better luck against Jordan Cullen, also of the US, winning in a time of 3mins29secs which had him sixth fastest for a while.
Dessau’s time against Foley, incidentally, was a PB for the American. Zach Shaw ( Australia ) won the event in 3mins 21seconds.
Later on that day, Jack Sadler put in a terrific performance in the scratch race before fading in the finish and ending up 18th. But the Vanilla Bikes UK man really got stuck in and wasn’t intimidated by the occasion or the opposition, making several massive attacks that really strung out the field.
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Sadler came into the Worlds on the back of a brilliant Junior Tour of Ireland where he bagged two stages.
In the women’s 500m time-trial, also that evening (Thursday), Hayley Priestley made her debut, finishing 18th, with Mellor just ahead of her.
Day three brought the highlight of the Championships from an Irish point of view when Mark Downey blasted his way to victory in heat 2 of the points race. The first year Banbridge CC rider attacked the field alone with 26 laps to go, and reached the back of the peloton 15 laps later.
The attack brought him all five points in sprint four with 20 laps to go and secured him the win. He didn’t have matters as easy in the final later that day, but finishing 15th from 20 riders was still a phenomenal achievement.
Sadler rode the 1k TT and finished 27th, a result that sounds worse than it really is as he was just six seconds off first place.
Thomas Fallon qualified for the omnium final on day three (Friday) and put in a similarly gutsy display to finish 16th with 89 points. The winner, Jack Edwards from Australia , had 18.
In what was the busiest day for the Irish team, Rachel Mellor rode the women’s individual pursuit and finished 28th. She was 22 seconds slower than gold medal winner Lauren Perry of Australia .
The penultimate day’s racing saw Priestley and Mellor ride the points race and the omnium with Priestley 12th in the latter (66 points) and Mellor 16th in the points race.
The team had been based in Belgium for most of July where they prepared for the Track Championships with a gruelling schedule of racing on the road and the track.
As well as the juniors, they also had a clutch of U23 riders racing and training at the same time so huge credit must go to all at Cycling Ireland for making it happen.
