SpotChat: Junior Woman – Amy Roberts

Catching up with a Welsh youngster who has been figuring in a lot of results this year in the UK and abroad

Amy, on the right, in a drag race to the line with the Junior Women’s World Champion no less, Lucy Garner.

After a good season as a first year Junior including two medals in the Youth Commonwealth Games, Amy told VeloUK at the weekend, “this season has gone quite well and I’ve been able to go abroad and I’ve managed to get a few results there as well as here in the UK with the new Scott team. That’s been working really well.”

The Scott team have helped Amy with lots of things including her bike, wheels and she says it’s great having an all junior girls team that works together and helps each other through the good and not so good days they have on the bike.

Asked for a highlight so far, she replies “there’s no one highlight, just getting all the good results really (four top 10’s in Holland). The stage win in the Bedford 2 Day was really pleasing. The team did a really good job during that race chasing down breaks and that and then a girl (Ciara Horne) got away, the one who was second, about 3k to go and I just chased her down and we worked together and then I managed to outsprint her at the end.”

Amy has been racing since she was a first year Under 14 and this year she says “I’m definitely making a lot of progress and hopefully 2012 will be a good year for me.” Amy is also a first year sixth form student so still has a way to go at school. That means having to balance her training around that school work. “It’s quite hard and just something we have to do” she says. “I do quite a bit of turbo work through the week because of the weather and it’s easier with the school work. I then get out on the road on the weekend.”

One of her goals is to try and make the GB team for the Junior Road Worlds in Holland and although most of her races so far have been flat ones in Holland, she is hoping that she’ll be fine on the hills of Limburg. Another goal involving no hills is the European Track Championships”. To help her acheive these goals, Amy says she expects, as a second year Junior, to go abroad to Belgium or Holland and do some kermesses to gain experience prior to the selections being made for these major events.

Amy finished second to Lucy Garner in the bunch kick on the final stage of the Bedford 2 Day (see photo above) showing that she is up there with one of the worlds best. Good luck to Amy for the rest of the season and the coming weekend when the British Junior Women’s Road Race Championships will be held in Wales, Amy’s home country. Startsheet here...