Ireland’s first ever Youth National Series took place today in Navan. The circuit was small but a very nice loop, a few small challenges and nice road surfaces lead to a great race. A stacked field of all of Ireland’s top riders also made for a super exciting race ready to unfold. My team VC Glendale Acdamey had 5 riders in the race so we were really fancying our chances and wanted to come away with a big result. We knew that we would be marked closely as we were the biggest team so we had planned to make it a hard and aggressive race.

The race started fast with attacks, we had a teammate onto every attack to ensure that we didn’t miss a move. On lap 1 a move went and i got into it, it was a 2 man move and we stayed away for 1 lap but the bunch then caught us. I then sat in the group for the next lap. A few more attacks went but my teammates followed them and neutralized them. Then a move of 3 riders went and one of my teammates was in it. I gave them a gap then over the top of the climb i bridged across to them solo. We gained a gap of 15 seconds after 1 lap in that break. One of the riders then got dropped which brought it down to a 3 man group, the gap then grew out to 20-25 seconds after a few laps. Next one of the strongest riders in the race bridged across to us making it a 4 man group again. WE all rolled equal turns for the next few laps right to the finish line. It was a group sprint for the placings. I kicked with 200m to go and gave it everything for the line, i finished 4th in the sprint.

I am super happy with this ride as i was super aggressive and spent 7 out of 8 laps in the break. I had a super strong feeling, my beast feeling on the bike all year so i’m super happy with today race and the form at this current time.