REID CHASING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MEDAL

Ben Reid has a very real chance of taking a medal in the junior world downhill championship tomorrow after he qualified an excellent fourth in Les Gets, France, yesterday.

Last year, Reid finished eleventh in the championship in Lugano, Switzerland, despite a crash during his run. The northern rider was less than half a second outside the top ten and would have been higher in the rankings had he not had that spill. A year older, he is capable of a top three placing if all goes to plan.

Reid will be joined in the junior race by Jamie Popham and Greg O�Keeffe. Popham has also targeted a medal in this year�s championships but has not yet fully recoved from a broken ankle. He rode conservatively in qualification, missing out on some jumps and finishing back in 45th place, but will be going all out tomorrow in a bid to crack the top ten.

Popham was a disappointed sixteenth in the worlds last year but showed his class with a fine fifth place in the European championships two weeks earlier. He equalled that placing in the European championships this year, with Reid seventh.

Of the other Irish on the squad, John Lawlor, Glyn O�Brien, Colin Ross, Andy Smith and Andrew Yoong will ride the elite downhill contest. Irish Olympians Robin Seymour and Jenny McCauley plus Irish women�s champion Tarja Owens will line out in the elite cross country events on Sunday, while under 23 Lewis Ferguson and juniors Barry Nolan and Andrew McCullough compete in their races today.