A PENCARREG athlete has been selected for Great Britain to compete in the UCI Cycling World Championships in Scotland.
Handcyclist Luke Jones is among the 84 riders selected to represent the Great Britain Cycling Team.
The road and time-trial events form part of an 11-day programme of 13 world championship events taking place across Scotland, from 3-13 August, with 8,000 riders competing and 190 UCI World Champions to be crowned.
Jones will compete in the para-time trial in Dumfries on 9 August, the road race on the 11th and the team relay on the 13th.
This will be the first world championships in which hand cyclists will represent GBCT in the mixed-team relay, with Claire Danson (WH3), Nick Beighton (MH5), Luke Jones (MH3) and Alex Brooke-Turner (MH4) all looking to secure historic rainbow jerseys.
Luke said: “I’m really happy to have been selected. I’ve definitely earned my spot, my results have been pretty good and I’m looking forward to putting in some good performances.”
He added: “The time trial course is mixed, there’s a little bit of something for everyone. It’s got a little bit of climbing in it, some fast sections and technical bits. I think it’s a really honest and fair course.
“My training’s been going really good. I’ve been home plugging away on the Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire roads, pushing hard and enjoying it.
“I’m going to be competing against a smaller field than I’m used to as the World Cups tend to have around 50 to 60 of the best athletes from around the world but the World Championships get narrowed down a little bit so you’re looking at 35 of the best riders, Australians, Americans and the french really have a strong team. Lots of different nations being are represented.
“I’m really excited, my training’s been good and I’m hoping to put in a really good shift.
“The level is so high, there are 35 guys on the start line and there are no out-and-out favourites.
“With the time trail and the road race courses being technical I think slight mistakes can cost you. There might not be a minute or minute 30 between the top 20 athletes in the world.
“If everything goes really well and I manage to nail it and do what I’ve been doing in training hopefully I can come away with a really good result.”