Junior Nations Cup 🇭🇺 August 20/21/22

With Cannibal Team 

Left ➡️ Right

Dylan 🇨🇦 Jamie 🇬🇧 Rokas 🇱🇹 Tomas 🇫🇮 Antoni 🇵🇱  Casper 🇳🇴 

We were really lucky to get a place at this event, we were 1 of 2 teams to get a Club Team entry accepted, the other team was the LUX cycling team from USA. Also on the start list was 17 National Teams & 1 Hungarian Regional Team. 
Due to Covid and ongoing travel restrictions this was the first time I was able to meet up with the team in two years. And after catching covid myself I only had a couple of weeks left of training before the event, so definitely not the best preparation but I was really excited and couldn’t wait! I had my negative pcr test results back, my letter of invitation to gain entry to Hungary and I was all set to go.
My Mum dropped me off at Stansted airport on the Wednesday morning, this was the first time I had traveled alone and luckily it was all straight forward at the airport with no delays.  
Once I landed at Budapest airport I had a couple hours to kill before meeting up with the rest of the team.  
We stayed quite close to the airport that night and then drove to the riders hotel the following morning. Once unpacked we went for a ride and then it was time to register and get our numbers ready for the following day’s Prologue.

Friday 20/8 - Prologue 

A short 3.8km flat and fast prologue with several turns around Nyiregyhaza. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I felt pretty good in the prologue and I was really pleased to finish 15th from 120 riders and the team were sitting in 5th position.

Saturday 21/8 - Stage 1 a

It was an early start to the day, breakfast was being served in the riders canteen between 5-6.30am and we left the accommodation not long after to get to the first race of the day.
The race was full on the from the start, I’m not sure anyone touched the brakes the entire time, there was plenty of crashes though out to try and avoid and it was definitely a race like none other I’d done before. It was so flat which made any small breaks hard to stick (but still had a go). Despite getting stuck behind a crash in the last 4km I managed to get back to the front group along with a few other riders and still get the front group time, so no changes to my GC after 2hrs and an average of 30mph

Shower, refuel, drive to the next stage, more food, back into kit and before long it was time to start warming up again.

Saturday 21/8 - Stage 1b

 This race was only 1hr and even faster than than the morning stage. I finished in the 2nd group on the road and move down to 34th in General Classification, but the team were still in 5th overall.

Sunday 22/8 - Stage 2

My job for this stage was chasing down the attacks and I also had a go at attacking, I did manage to get away solo at one point and I tried to hang on till the intermediate sprint but unfortunately got brought back not long before it. Back in the group I continued to chase down attacks and sit on the front for our sprinter. This was the longest stage, the first stage race I've done in two years and I was definitely feeling it in the last half hour,  I dropped off the main group in the last 10km, many riders were split into several groups, so several changes to GC, I lost a few minutes on the stage but in the team classification we moved up to 4th overall so a fantastic result for the team at this level of racing 🙌 I loved it, it was a fantastic experience to race at this level with the team.
Thank you to all the team staff for help and support before, during and after the races. Thanks to Francis, Erika, Gyorgy & Andreas and also the Team sponsors for making it possible 👏