Promising results of the Youth Olympic Cycling Team Ireland at the Youth Olympics held in Baku Azerbaijan…Darren Rafferty a magic top 8 in the road race…boom!!

Getting experience in world-level races is hard to come by for our Irish young cyclists, and when the chance comes you grab it with both hands and the six athletes who have been lucky to be chosen to represent their country and federation just did. The step from local youth racing to Olympic European standard racing is enormous and for this first-timers very daunting, but the experiences gained is worth his weight in gold!! Yes we can not compete for medals yet and nobody expects that from the first time out, but they give their souls and body to it, and that is all we want from this young Olympics…Rome was not built in one day and with successes, it is the same! And when one of them (Darren) managed to mix with the top of Europe and getting an 8th behind his name then we should be very proud of him not forgetting his team around him, he is the best in Ireland in his age class, and have seen him competing in A1-A2 races with special permission due to preparing for yesterday’s race (and top 5’s as a result) I had no doubt he has reached such heights already.

But there was not Darren only in Baku, and the others also give everything they got in their legs, the TT was a very windy and hot affair and remember they come from Ireland and we call 20 degrees Celcius a heatwave..lol, maybe not an excuse but still a factor when not use to such condition. They bravely pushed as hard they could and can be proud of themselves big time. Bad results don’t exist in my vocabulary when you have done your best, and after all, you have been competing with some of the best in Europe!!

The road race yesterday was again in very hot conditions and here the results of our warriors