Cycling: Eaves to follow brother’s footsteps at junior world champs

Two years after his brother represented his country, Burnie’s Alex Eaves will do likewise after being selected for September’s junior road cycling world championships in Switzerland.

Alex Eaves (second from left) with fellow Tasmanians Sam McKee, Hayden van der Ploeg and Lachlan Oliver after they took out the team pursuit at the Auscycling National Track Championships. Picture: Andrew Trovas

Burnie teenager Alex Eaves will follow in his older brother Will’s footsteps after being named to make his UCI Junior Road World Championships debut at Switzerland in September.

Eaves is one of four young Tasmanians, alongside Oliver Sims, Lachlan Oliver and Jonas Shelverton invited to race mainly in Italy as part of a junior development team, Team Veleka, run by Tour de France stage winner and Olympian Simon Clarke.

Strong results in those races, plus finishing second and fifth respectively in the junior time trial and road races at January’s Road Nationals, helped ensure Alex was one of four men selected for the world championships.

He joins last year’s Oceania Road race champion Will Heath and this year’s victor and Road Nats bronze medallist Max Goold in the squad. Junior men’s time trial national champion Wil Holmes is the only returning member from last year’s world championships team.

The selection continues a strong week for Tasmanian cycling, with Launceston’s Georgia Baker selected for her third Olympics.

Tasmania's Sam McKee, Alex Eaves, Hayden van der Ploeg and Lachlan Oliver took out the team pursuit at the Auscycling National Track Championships. Picture: Andrew Trovas

Alex has followed Will’s preparation by also being part of an Australian road camp in Europe.

Will competed in the junior road world championships at Wollongong two years ago.

“Will said he got a lot of experience riding in some challenging races at the camp, and this year I plan to be there for five months staying just outside of Rome,” Eaves said in January.

“I did it last year, and it got me a lot of experience riding in bunches. This year hopefully I can go over and start recording some good results.

“It’s really handy (having an older brother who is also a cyclist), We train together basically every day and his advice is just to train hard and give it everything I’ve got.”

The Tas Uni-Fairbrother Development team gives young talent a platform to race in national level events, and have helped the Tasmanian contingent pick up opportunities in Europe.

“We’ve got four racing through that (Simon Clarke) initiative, which says a lot about where we’re at with our under-19 cohorts,” team manager James McKee said.

“There’s a pipeline to get that experience now which wasn’t there a couple of years ago.”

The junior world championship time trials will be held on September 23, with the road race three days later.