Continuing our blog from Felix English
“Things seem to progress quite quickly from that moment, with the club lending me one of their red hire bikes for year I headed to my first National Track Championships in Newport. I didn’t really have too much of an idea of what I was doing but again, thanks to PPYCC I’d been able to ride the velodrome a few times previous and eventually ended up leaving my first Nationals with a bronze medal. Now it’s 12 years later but it really doesn’t feel like it. I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world and get paid to do it because I’m occasionally fast on a bike. After temporarily leaving road racing behind I am now purely focussed on winning a medal (or medals!) at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the omnium and madison. It’s going to be a tough next 2.5 years, with I’m sure plenty of ups and down but I’m confident that the hard work I and my team mates are putting in behind the scenes really sets us apart from a lot of our competition. In my spare time off the bike I have also set up my own track cycling team -TrackProject.ie. Another thank you is due to PPYCC here, as last year you were kind enough to donate money raised at the club AGM. As the team was only founded at back end of 2016, the money raised was extremely appreciated and allowed us to travel to an international UCI track meet in the Czech Republic in September. This event was the final omnium race of the year that carried UCI points and we eventually finished 3rd, those points are what guaranteed me a spot in the omnium this winter in the UCI World Cups. Without that race, I wouldn’t have made the cut – so an extra big thank you from my end! This will no doubt have a direct impact on my Olympic qualification as I’ll now be able to ride the omnium at the UCI World Track Championships in Holland in March.”