News: New Project for Felix English

Irish cycling team riders Felix English & Fintan Ryan and their TrackProject.ie aiming at qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo

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News: New Project for Felix English

A familiar name in British cycle racing circles, Felix English, along with Fintan Ryan (both part of the Irish Elite squad) have a new project called TrackProject.ie.

Creating the team says Felix was first discussed in September 2016 after both of him and Fintan acknowledged that they wanted to put more focus on the track. “I’ve raced in the UK for continental teams since 2012 and although I’ve enjoyed it, I really felt like I needed a bit of a change” says Felix.

“The track is what we both love and with the limited number of track specific teams out there, it seemed this was the best and most exciting option!” he went on to say.

Felix says they are both focussed on qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. “We’re showing now as a nation that we’re good enough to compete at a World Class level and we wanted to have the capabilities of being completely self-dependent but also to have the ability to choose our own race calendar.”

“Another reason for the team, is that we want to have a positive impact on youth track cycling in Ireland – there’s the obvious and frequently talked about lack of a velodrome in Ireland but we’re hoping to hold youth track skill sessions at the outdoor Sundrive track in Dublin throughout the summer but possibly in the future organise some youth trips to train at a velodrome. I think having a new Irish international track team only has positive outcomes”.

Felix says their immediate goals are to race UCI events around Europe and later in the year, worldwide, to pick up points for World Championship qualification. “We also have a number of international Madisons pencilled in which we hope will aid in us breaking into the six-day scene.”

Pic: Guy Swarbrick

Like most track endurance riders, Felix explained that they would also be racing on the road. “We’ll be racing on the road in Mallorca, Ireland and the UK. We’re also fortunate enough to be able to team up with our bike sponsor Planet-X and hope to be racing some UCI events in Ireland and the UK.”

As for his goals right now, Felix explains “I’m now pretty focussed on the upcoming UCI World Cup’s in Cali and LA. I flew back out to Mallorca on Boxing Day to start training and I’m already excited to get racing again – I don’t enjoy training too much…!”

“I also spent a few days aero testing at the track with our new Planet-X bikes equipment and also our new Powerhouse Sport kit. Although the World Cup’s are a goal, the real focus is on the World Championships in April (Hong Kong). After coming back to the track last winter, I just about scraped qualifying for the World Championship Scratch and Points races. I’m currently #1 in the UCI Scratch World Rankings and Mark (Downey) is highly placed in the Points race after his World Cup in Apeldoorn, and we hope to finalise our place for the Madison Worlds at the World Cups where we’re both aiming for medals”.

Good luck to Felix and the team in 2017

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