First Day Of Talent Team 2020

Had sort of been wondering whether to stick up a post about this or not as I haven't got much to say, but a short post'l probably do no harm!

What is the Talent Team 2020?

"Talent Team 2020 was recently launched with the aim of nurturing the young talented cyclists that we have in Ireland, and building a structure that will see the development of cyclists through to the 2020 Olympics. 16 of the best U16 riders in the country have been selected originally."

It kicked off on Saturday 29th October with a lovely drive down to Scott MacDonald's Winning Solutions in Dublin -

Session began with a rough introduction to all of the coaches and different important people there and then headed down to the CI van (you'll see she's no D-turbo) for some photos.



Then the sun came out and being Irish we had no idea what to do as we don't experience the rays too often: so everybody closed their eyes and looked generally retarded. Classic. Click on it there and you can see it bigger, fasten your seatbelts...



Then individual photos came, and things went from bad to worse, I'll save you the torture of having to look at a close up photo of me with a couple of hours sleep the night before.

After photos we jogged down to the local park for a bit of run. Probably shouldn't have done this due to my knee but thought I'd give it a go and see what happened. Wasn't too bad, sandbagged at the back for the duration of it to ensure I didn't push too hard. Hopefully can get this knee, or what's left of it, sorted for the season and not be sandbagging for the year! But, we look on injuries as a positive. Time to practise not looking like I've just fallen out the back of the yellow bus in photos.

Jogged back up and then Sam Bennett, pro Sean Kelly An Post rider, U23 Road Race Champion as far as I'm aware, got us stuck into some quality stretches to be doing.



After that it was time to get a bit of lunch down and chat about a bit with the lads. Then came a bike positioning talk from Paddy Doran and the distribution of a file with some goalsetting sheets and that sort of kit in it.


Overall a pretty good day, good to see the rest of the team and meet the various coaches we'll be working with, and get a bit of a chat with Sam Bennett, learnt a couple of new things I can put into practice.

That's it for now. Short one with plenty of photos. Over and out.