There is one more important engagement for an Irish team this year with Olympic qualification at stake. National team director Richie Beatty has named Ciaran Power, Tommy Evans, David McCann, Eugene Moriarty and Michael McNena for the B world championship road race at Montevideo in Uruguay on November 14th.

If any of them can finish among the top seven nations a place will be available for an Irish rider in the Olympic road race in Sydney. Robin Seymour is also poised for an Olympic mountain bike place and he will be in action in Louisiana on Sunday. He then goes on to the final qualifying race in Tennessee on Sunday week.

Since Cyprus in March, Seymour has been chasing qualifying points in California, Belgium, Britain, Spain, Germany and Turkey as well as the European and world championships in Portugal and Sweden.

His world ranking of 58th with 43 points puts Ireland 20th of 22 nations to take part in Sydney so he looks set to qualify. The positions of the other Irishmen in the rankings are Richie McCauley 160th, Philip McNamara 242nd and Alastair Martin 465th.

After Power's performances in the Herald Sun Tour in Australia, where he was fourth overall, he must be the main Irish hope at Montevideo. He missed out winning any of the 15 stages during the Australian tour but he had two seconds, three thirds and was also fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th with 23rd his lowest placing.

There will also be an Irish representative in the womens B world championship as Beatty has selected New York-based Deirdre Murphy.

National road race champion, Tommy Evans, will attempt to break the Irish one hour record of 43.527 kilometres next week. He has booked the Manchester track on Monday and Wednesday.