Ferrity flies to title success

OISIN Ferrity capped an already magnificent season by being crowned National Junior Road Race champion in County Cork on Sunday.

The 16-year-old Island Wheeler has enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2022, winning the Tour of Ards and the Galway Classic before topping both of those achievements with the Irish crown in Kanturk.

“It’s brilliant, it’s nice to get it” he beamed.

“I’ve had a good season so far. The win in the Tour of Ards probably gave me to confidence to push on because getting that first win gives you that extra bit of motivation.

“I’ve just kept on chipping away and doing my own thing but I probably wouldn’t have believed I would have won the National title because the junior ranks are very strong again this year.”

Ferrity was one of six riders who reached the finish together in the junior men’s race, with 119 tough kilometres splintering the pelaton and making it very difficult to close down the day’s breakaway riders.

The first year junior had been active all day, bridging across to two early leaders with four other chasers, and maintaining enough energy to fend off challenges from fresher riders as the race progressed.

He won the uphill sprint against Niall McLoughlin (Westport Covey Wheelers Cycling Club) and Patrick O’Loughlin (Panduit Carrick Wheelers), clinching a well-deserved victory on the line with the chasing pack of Darragh Doherty (VC Glendale), Finn McHenry (The Cycling Academy) and Ruairi Byrne (Panduit Orwell Wheelers). rounding out the top six.

Being a first year junior makes the achievement all the more special for him but he admits that won’t be easy.

“I get to wear the jersey all year and then hopefully defend it next year,” he beamed.

“The junior’s are very strong in Ireland, there’s riders everywhere!

“That makes it difficult to win any race, particularly the National’s, but it also pushes you on.

“It pushes everyone on because if someone improves and you get beaten in a race, you want to try to beat them.”

Oisin, who finished his GCSE’s on Thursday, believes sitting out that evening’s time-trial helped his bid for success on Saturday.

“I finished my GCSE’s on Thursday with physics, so I decided, about two months ago, to skip the TT this year and put all my focus on the road race,” he explained. “I think that helped because I didn’t have that really hard effort a couple of days before.”

With the National’s now over, the St Patrick’s Academy pupil is looking forward to the Newry three-day this coming weekend, followed by the Junior Tour and then a spell in Belgium with Danny Blondeel’s Belgian Project, which he’s particularly looking forward to.

“I can’t wait to get out [to Belgium] and get some high level racing out there which will hopefully bring me to another level,” Oisin explained.

“The difference between here and there is there are 20 good riders here and 100 over there!”