Irish Team Announced for Final World Cup Event

The Irish Cycling Team has been announced for the third and final World Cup event of the 2011-12 season. The London Olympic Velodrome is the venue for this final round, which is being used as a test event for the Olympic Games in August.

Martyn Irvine heads the team, with his sights set on securing more valuable points for Olympic Qualification. Irvine has been performing consistently this season, with a top five result in the Omnium at the last round in Beijing. The Omnium is a new event in the Olympics, and involves cyclists competing in 6 events with points awarded according to their finish position in each event. This is Irvine's second last opportunity to secure qualifying points in this Olympic event before the
London Games. The final qualifying event is the Track World Championships in Melbourne in April.

Caroline Ryan will be racing in the Individual Pursuit. The 2011 National Champion in this event came 7th in the Pursuit at the World Cup in Cali last December, and will be looking to knock a few more seconds off the Irish Record of 3min 39.4sec. The individual pursuit is a 3kmrace against the clock.

Eoin Mullen is making his World Cup Debut in London. The National Sprint record holder is a first year senior rider, and is based in Aigle; headquarters for UCI, the International Cycling Union. Eoin will be racing in the sprint, keirin and the kilo. The explosive young rider has been going from strength to strength over the last few years, and last year broke the national 200m record as a junior rider, in a time of 10.565 seconds. In his events Mullen will get a chance to demonstrate is strength against some of the best known Olympians like Chris Hoy.

Racing starts on Friday 17th February.

Results can be followed live on www.tissottiming.com and the link to the Official Website is www.londonpreparesseries.com

The full team is as follows
Martyn Irvine (Omnium)
Caroline Ryan (Individual Pursuit)
Eoin Mullen (Sprint, Keirin, Kilo)

The squad will be supported by, Martin O'Loughlin (Manager), Terry Cromer (Mechanic) and Karen Doyle (Masseuse)