US riders from Junior Tour Ireland 2022 making their mark on world stage

*Andrew August leads the junior Tour of Ireland in the yellow jersey, on his way to overall victory, in July (Photo: Sean Rowe)*

The standard of the American riders who rode the Junior Tour of Ireland this year is becoming very clear on the world stage, with one of them winning the junior race at the Koppenbergcross international cyclocross promotion yesterday and another breaking the junior world hour record.

Andrew August, the 17-year-old who rode the Junior Tour for the US Hot Tubes team, claimed a stage victory and the overall in the Irish race, also winning the young rider classification. Yesterday at Koppenbergcross in Melden, Belgium, August took a very strong win in the junior event, beating his nearest rival by almost one minute.

He hit the afterburners on the final lap and had 58 seconds to spare over runner-up Oliver Akers, the British rider competing with Garden Shed UK-Ribble-Verge Sport who won the junior race at Verge Cross Clonmel in Ireland last month. Czech rider Václav Ježek was 3rd at one minute yesterday.

The victory underlines August's world class potential, which he signaled at the start of this year after placing 5th in the junior race at the Worlds. He enjoyed a successful trip to Ireland in July when he took the yellow jersey at the Junior Tour by winning stage 4 into Barefield and then held it all the way to be crowned overall victor for 2022.

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One of August's team mates on the Irish stage race this year, Jonas Walton, has also gone on to bigger things since his trip to Ireland. He has since broken the junior world hour record. Walton is the 18-year-old son of former pro rider and Olympian for Canada, Brian Walton, who rode for the 7-Eleven, Motorola and Saturn teams during his career.

Two weeks ago at the Aguascalientes Velodrome in Mexico, Walton rode 50.792km on the track at high altitude. That was just over 1.6km further than then new record of 49.184km set by Fred Meredith from Wales back in March of this year. The junior world hour record is not recognised officially by the UCI but it is ratified by some national federations.

Walton finished 2nd on stage 2 of the Junior Tour, was 2nd overall and was also leading the climbers' classification when he was forced out of the race before stage 3 after his team was hit with some Covid-19 cases.