Cycling Ireland has announced two more withdrawals from events in this week’s European Championships in the Netherlands, with Ryan Mullen and Archie Ryan confirming their absence from the road races.
Mullen was due to ride both the time trial on Wednesday and Sunday’s road race, but will now not contest the latter.
“Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances arising, I have had to make the difficult decision to withdraw from the European Championships road race,” he said. “I will only race the time trial this week. I would like to thank Cycling Ireland for giving me the opportunity to race and for their understanding of my situation.”
His Bora-hansgrohe team-mate Sam Bennett previously withdrew from the squad due to illness, leaving Rory Townsend and Dillon Corkery as the sole entrants. Irish international Conn McDunphy had made himself available to the team but Cycling Ireland has indicated it won’t bring alternative entrants in at this point.
Ryan is one of Ireland’s most promising young riders, winning a stage of the recent Tour de l’Avenir, but will not now contest Friday’s under-23 road race.
He has been called up at short notice for the five-day Tour de Luxembourg, which begins on Wednesday. He will compete in that event in a guest slot with the Jumbo-Visma WorldTour team. Ryan normally races with its development squad but has been invited to contest the 2.Pro-ranked event with the team.
“I’m super excited to get started,” he admitted on Tuesday. “The course is real tough and we have Tiesj Benoit here in great shape. I’ll do my best to help him and we’ll see how it goes.
The stages are sufficiently difficult to suit Ryan’s climbing abilities, as well as those of fellow Irishman Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost).
Five riders will contest the under-23 road race on Friday. Ryan’s future EF Education-EasyPost team-mate Darren Rafferty will take part along with Dean Harvey, Odhrán Doogan, Jamie Meehan and Kevin McCambridge.
Racing begins on Wednesday with 10 Irish riders going in the time trials for elite men, elite women, under-23 men and junior men and women.
Mullen said he hopes for a strong Irish campaign.
“It’s really encouraging to see so many young and upcoming riders here as part of the team. The European Championships are a fantastic event which has provided me with great opportunities to perform over the years and it’s exciting to see a strong bunch of Irish riders that have the chance to show their best in the green jersey.”
