This month I started racing for 2026, with the main part of my season starting a bit earlier than usual, heading out to the Quarteira European Junior Cup in Portugal last weekend.
After some consistent weeks of training heading into the race I’d been looking forward to seeing what I was capable of and putting together a strong performance in a quality field.
Ahead of racing I missed my flight heading out there after 2 hours in security and standstill queues so had to take the late flight getting into Portugal at midnight to add a difficult situation to the mix.
With a few days prior to the race on Sunday I took some decent time to prepare well and was looking forward to racing on an exciting course over my first sprint distance on the road. With not too many sea swims the start was fairly technical and the bike course took in some quick corners on a mainly flat course with one steep hill on a 90 degree entry and exit, before rounding out with a flat and fast 5k run.
With a low start number, 51 out of 70 odd, there wasn’t too many positions left on the start line but I took a good spot that helped me swim well to be just 15s off the main front out of the swim and get into the front bike group early.
On the bike it would’ve been ideal to be a bit more consistently higher placed but I still took some turns on the front, including when the front two break was caught, so was good to get out in some clearer space.
Being a little too far back into T2 just 8s off the leader, meant I had some work to do but caught some guys early into the run and was initiating pace to try and bridge to the front. I pulled my group into 3rd with the front two Spanish guys still up the road, and put some surges in myself dropping a couple guys off our group.
Hot weather for me at this time of year was definitely one of the difficult factors to go with the pace towards the end and the fight for a podium started to intensify with a few of the older strong guys getting a small gap ahead. I got one final athlete in the last 100m to take 6th in a stacked field for my second Junior European Cup and first race as a Junior, so all in all a great start to the racing season and I was able tonput in a strong performance.
Racing at this level is proper exciting and I’m looking forward to more opportunities like this 🤝
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