Mullen Makes Senior Worlds Debut

In the final day of racing for the Irish Team at the World Track Cycling Championships in Minsk, young talent Eoin Mullen narrowly missed qualifying for the second round on the Men's Sprint, in a time of 10.329 seconds over 200m Sprint. The 19 year old from the Aran Islands has been based in Aigle, at the World Cycling Centre, for the past few years, and is the first Irish person to qualify for the World Championships in a Sprint discipline. This time demonstrates that Mullen will be a dominant force in future years, being less than a second over the fastest rider in qualifiers, Pervis (France). The top 24 riders progressed to the next round; Mullen's time put him in 27th position, out of 41 starters.

Later this afternoon Caroline Ryan finished 13th in the Points Race. Ryan, who narrowly missed out on a medal in the Scratch race yesterday, won a Bronze medal in the Points Race at the World Championships last year. In the tactical race, that requires the riders to sprint for points ten times throughout the 25km, Ryan was just outside the Points, resulting in 13th place at the finish. While she will be disappointed with this result, she has raced well this weekend, already achieving 5th place in the Individual Pursuit and 7th in the Scratch Race.

Speaking from Minsk, Track Cycling Coach Andy Sparks said "It's the first time in history that an Irish Team have walked away with a World Championship Jersey and two medals. With three years before Rio, we could not have started a new Olympic cycle better." Sparks has had an extremely successful Championship, with several of his athletes winning medals. One of these was Ryan's training partner, Sofia Arreola Navarro (Mexico), who won Silver in both the Women's Scratch Race and Points Race.

This rounded up Ireland's most successful World Track Cycling Championships, following Martyn Irvine's sensational Gold Medal win in the Scratch Race, along with the Silver Medal he won in the Individual Pursuit less than an hour earlier.