Liam O’Brien (19) called up to Lidl-Trek World Tour team again for “mega week”

Liam O’Brien has enjoyed an important first in his cycling career; working for the overall winner in a top flight pro race after being called up to the Lidl Trek World Tour line-up again.

Though still aged just 19 years, and in his first season out of the juniors, O’Brien signed for Lidl-Trek Future Racing during the winter but was called up to the Lidl-Trek World Tour team for Gran Premio Miguel Indurain (1.Pro) last month and again for Tour of the Alps (2.Pro) last week.

He spent the five stages, including some brutally hard climbing, working for the team as his team mate, Juan Pedro López, won stage and the overall. O’Brien told stickybottle it was a “mega experience” to be called up to the World Tour selection and ride for the race winner.

“I didn’t expect to be racing the big prep race for the Giro this year at all, and to then be on the winning team at that,” he said, adding while he crashed on stage 1 he was able to shake that off and continue.

“I built into the race every day from then on, Wednesday was a pretty brutal day weather-wise. But it went well and I stayed with our leaders on the climb in the first real selection to help positioning and beforehand into the key point of the race on the finish lap.”

O’Brien said the work rate required for everyone on the team increased when López won stage 3 and took the race lead.

“Thursday was the queen stage; 140km with just under 4,000 metres,” he said of the race to Borgo Valsugana, including two main climbs; the 10km Passo del Compet and the 9.3km Passo del Vetriolo.

“It was always going to be a hard day to control, with a 15km climb to begin the day,” said O’Brien. “The plan was for me to work in the middle part of the race but the pace was on on the first climb, with other GC riders jumping.”

O’Brien teamed up with team mate Carlos Verona in a bid to keep the pace high and keep the action under control during that section of the stage, which they succeeded in doing. O’Brien then worked for López again, repeating that on the final day, with the race leader proving very strong on the finals and defending well.

“It was a super week and a super enjoyable to be working in a stage race, especially for a leader like Juanpe, he’s a true team leader,” said O’Brien, who immediately went to a team training camp in Girona after his stage race debut with Lidl Trek.