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Last Updated: 2 Apr 2018 - 8:45:17 PM |
Cycling Ireland’s High Performance manager Frank Campbell has said that he is encouraged by the showing some of the country’s top riders have made during the CI track tryout in Belgium this week. The Irish Sports Council-funded trial was carried out in order to see if the riders had the interest and potential to chase Olympic qualification on the boards.
Professionals David O’Loughlin, Mark Scanlon, Nicolas Roche, Ciarán Power plus international riders Ryan Connor, Dermot Nally, Paul Healion, Ray Clarke, Michael Murray and Miceal Concannon have all been riding in Ghent and, according to Campbell, the signs are good.
Irishcycling.com spoke to him on Thursday afternoon and he gave his feedback then on the Belgian trip.
Shane Stokes: How have things been during the track tryout?
Frank Campbell: Things are going very well. We are actually with the doctor at the moment have blood and power tests done, after the two and a half days we have had here. We have been running the riders through some basic skills, then done pursuiting, team pursuiting, some points races and time trials. All of them want to come back and do it again.
They did some test times this morning which were quite encouraging. All of them…particularly Scanlon and Power looked like the could transfer their road work over. Roche was impressive as well.
It was all looking very good. We will sit down and look at the figures afterwards with Brian Nugent, who has been over here coaching with us, and we will compare them to some of the other standards. But I definitely think it has been a worthwhile exercise for us.
SS: So Scanlon and Power stood out?
FC: Well, on Scanlon’s first day on the track he was really nervous. He was looking very worried about it. But in today’s session behind the derny he was very, very impressive. He did a kilometre time and a flying two kilometre, plus some pretty fast team pursuit work today. He was fitting in very well and it looks like he was transferring his road power across to the track.
Roche too. He happened to have a fall on one of the days but he just got back up there again and was very impressive on it.
SS: Presumably David O’Loughlin is very psyched after his win at the last Revolutions race?
FC: Well, O’Loughlin is quite a bit ahead of them because of this track skills and because he has ridden pursuit. He is trying to get back to the shape he was in just after the worlds, when he went for the record, and with final clearance from the board we will be sending him to Moscow in December to do the pursuit out there.
He will spend some time again in Newport, two days with Brian [Nugent] and then that will be a week or so before he goes to Moscow.
SS: What is left there now?
FC: Well, we are finished today. This was just set up for three days and we are finishing now with Dr Dag van Elslande (Discovery Channel doctor) here now, doing blood tests and some new SRM tests so he can set up training programmes for the guys.
SS: Did everyone that was on the original list make it along?
FC: Pretty much, although David McCann couldn’t come because he was sick. He had his tonsils taken out this week. What we are looking at doing is another three days again in December, bringing some of the guys who are here and then also bringing some new guys who we didn’t get fitted up with last time, assessing them to see where we are.
SS: You were saying to us a few weeks ago that Mark Scanlon’s motivation seemed good. How has he been there?
FC: Super, super. Absolutely magnificent. He is the life and soul of the party. He did everything [on the track] and actually went out for a couple of days on his road bike, between the sessions, just him and Roche. They are both in really good form. Roche did the test here today before he went away.
It was all very, very encouraging, I had to say. I am very pleased by it all.
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