Irish riders discuss the Junior World Championship

Images: Danny Relouw

We caught up with the Irish riders after the first appearance for the Nation at the Junior World Championship – it was fantastic to see Ireland in the paddock.

Get the thoughts from the riders below… thanks to Neil Thompson for his help.

Cole McCullough: 

Awww, the weekend didn’t end the way I wanted it too. I set the fastest time in Free Practice, backing it up with P2 in qualifying and P3 on Sunday’s warm up. I was only able to salvage P10 in race 2 after charging through from dead last on the opening lap after a small crash but one thing you can’t learn is speed. I know I have it and the weekend proved it once again, it will come together and I’m pretty sure of that. Thanks to Richard McKeown for doing a very dignified and professional job leading the team.

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Lewis Spratt: 

It was great to be there and representing Team Ireland at a World Championship with a good team of people around you. Didn’t exactly perform out on track as i wanted to but we will keep working and look forward to next year.

Alfie Herron:

It was an awesome weekend, great support from Richard, Laurence and the rest of team Ireland. Privileged to be picked to ride for my country. Good insight into where I need to be in the future at the top level.

Hayden Gibson:

Great experience loved every minute of it.

Kole Nally:

What an experience and honour to ride for my country with great team mates new and old. Between lashing rain and sunshine it felt like home. We had great training on different tracks the week before which helped my prep, lots of fun with the lads but with Saturday looming it started to feel real. We walked the track with Richard before hand but with the torrential rain the track kept changing and changing. Saturday was qualifying, a format I wasn’t used too, I rode my ass off and ended up getting into the last chance qualifier, realising this was a difficult task with only 4 getting through to Sunday I rode hard but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. I was gutted I didn’t get through. After time and watching Sundays races it has made me hungry for more. Overall Junior Worlds was the best experience and couldn’t have happened without Richard and his dedication, my Mum and Dad who are my biggest supporters and critics! Also a big thanks to all my sponsors who have made this possible for me. Thank you to you all. Bring on next year.

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John McCann:

The week before had went well, riding was perfect and was really excited to see what I could do. Free practice, the track was really technical and I couldn’t really find flow, eventually did then qualifying the track changed again by the time I got used to it and settled it was to late. Overall not happy with my riding worked hard off the bike too but just my hardest wasn’t enough.

Jack Deasy:

It was good to experience racing with the Irish jersey for the first time, had a lot of fun over the weekend but also frightening… Disappointed in myself for not riding how I know I can but I know I’ll get better staying out in Belgium and racing in Europe. Thanks too everyone involved.

Caleb Ross:

I have never ridden anything like the track at Heerde in my life and found the track really tough. All I wanted to do was qualify and it felt awesome to get some fast laps and make it happen. It was so cool racing the fastest kids in the world and I so happy I got this opportunity to represent Ireland. Thanks to Richard for picking me for the team!

Cole McAuley: 

I really enjoyed the experience of racing the JWC. I enjoyed the track even though it was the toughest one I’ve ever rode, the jumps and the berms were fun. I feel like I could have improved the speed. It was awesome being picked to represent team Ireland and something I’ll never forget. A huge thank you to Richard for being a great team manager. The training days during the week with Michael Das were very good and really enjoyable. 

Max Jones:

My clutch went in lap 1 of the qualifying race. Without a lap time, I was unable to take part in the LCQ. I’m really disappointed that I was unable to put in a strong performance for Team Ireland.