Irish trio Ryan Mullen, Conor Dunne and Jack Wilson will take centre stage tomorrow as they line out for the U23 Road Race at the UCI Road World Championships in Ponferrada, Spain.
A testing 182 kilometre route through the mountainous El Bierzo Valley lies ahead of the riders but Mullen will be brimming with confidence following his second place finish in the U23 Individual TT on Monday.
Mullen etched his name in the history books when he became the first Irish rider to claim a medal in a time trial event at the World Championships.
The twenty year-old came agonisingly close to taking home the gold, finishing a mere 0.48 of a second behind Australia’s Campbell Flakemore.
Both Wilson and Dunne will be eager to emulate Mullen’s success and team manager Kurt Bogaerts said Mullen’s achievement has given the other riders added confidence going in to the race.
“Ryan’s performance was simply outstanding" - Ireland manager Kurt Bogaerts on Ryan Mullen's silver medal
“Ryan’s performance was simply outstanding," said Bogaerts. "When a rider performs to his ability and gets his reward it makes the other guys sit up and think ‘wow, I want that’, so it definitely spurs the team on and also gives them more confidence to go out and believe they can do it themselves.”
Bogaerts was optimistic when speaking of his riders chances on Friday.
“I’m sure Ryan will want to pick up where he left off on Monday so he’ll go in to the race full of desire to pick up a second medal," he said.
“Both Conor and Jack are raring to go. Jack had a bad crash as we know at the Tour of Britain but he’s recovered well and raced at the weekend.
“They will all be in the mix so I’m excited to see how it plays out.”
