Ryan & Irvine Finish 16th & 17th In Omnium At 2015 UCI Track Cycling World Cup

Day three of the UCI Track Cycling World saw Irish sprinter Eoin Mullen narrowly miss out on progressing out of the qualifying rounds in Cali, when his time of 10.290 seconds put him in 25th place, with the top 24 contesting the next rounds. In the Omniums, after two days of racing, Caroline Ryan and Martyn Irvine finished in 16th and 17th position respectively; Shannon McCurley finished in 25th position in the Women's Keirin. This was the third and final World Cup on the Track Cycling 2014/15 calendar, with more valuable Olympic qualification points available.

Mullen, 21, completed the 200m time trial in 10.290, just 0.049 seconds short of qualifying for the next round. The Aigle based sprinter has been consistently improving over the last number of years, and last summer won a bronze medal in the U23 European Championships in this discipline. Shannon McCurley, 22, is another talented sprinter, who has been progressing this year racing in the Women's Keirin at the world level for the first time, having previously won a bronze medal in the Scratch Race at the U23 European Championships in 2011.

The Omnium events saw Caroline Ryan drop a few places to 16th overall. Ryan started strong with the Scratch Race and Individual Pursuit on Saturday, but was caught out on the shorter events like the 500m TT and the Flying Lap on Sunday. Her finishing position today puts her in 19th place in the overall World Cup Results. Martyn Irvine, who broke his collarbone at the World Cup in Mexico, finished in 17th place overall. With the Points Race closing the Omnium, Irvine fought hard to crawl up the rankings by scoring points in several of the closing laps.

While it was a tough weekend for the Irish team, Head Coach Brian Nugent was happy with the performances saying "This was a very important weekend for World Championship qualification. We had a tough weekend, but the team kept battling and I'm confident we have done enough to qualify our biggest ever team to a track world championship."

The World Championships take place in Paris in February. This World Cup did not feature any of the Class 1 additional events that were featured in London last month, meaning the focus was solely on Olympic class events. The World Cup runs from 16th - 18th January.