Worlds medallist Clay stays as camsmajaco trim junior women’s squad to seven

camsmajaco have named seven riders for their 2027 junior women’s squad. Aalia Clay, the bronze medallist in the junior time trial at last month’s world championships, stays on with Emer Heverin, Rose Lewis and Eloise Ward, and three riders step up from youth racing: Millie Boothman, Yamina Clay and Katie Robertson.

The line-up follows the eight-rider junior men’s squad the team announced on 1 October, and both are smaller than this year’s. camsmajaco launched in February with 10 junior women and 11 junior men.

“With major changes from the UCI to the format of the Nations Cup races for 2027, it makes sense for us to move ahead with a smaller junior women’s squad,” team principal Ian Mansel-Thomas said. “This will ensure we continue to provide an unrivalled level of opportunity for these talented young women to showcase their abilities.”

The UCI confirmed last month that a reformatted Junior Road Nations Cup will start in 2027. It will have 11 events between February and July, four of them in Europe, each with a men’s and a women’s race for teams of five, “primarily national teams”, before a Grand Final at the Piccola Tre Valli Varesine in Varese from 29 July to 1 August. Mansel-Thomas said the new format shuts out trade teams such as camsmajaco, with entry limited to national and regional teams.

The exclusion of trade teams from Nations Cups makes a big difference to the junior women’s calendar, where top-level race opportunities are already limited

“The exclusion of trade teams from Nations Cups makes a big difference to the junior women’s calendar, where top-level race opportunities are already limited,” he said. “For the junior men, the effect is minimal, as the calendar for junior men is a lot more extensive.”

“We will have a slightly smaller junior men’s squad too, reflecting a more focused race calendar,” he added. “The reality is that, given the level of financial support we provide for European races, a more concentrated junior men’s calendar will mean the team remains sustainable in the long term.”

Aalia Clay returns after a first junior season that ended with a world championship medal. The 17-year-old, who came through the youth ranks at VC Londres, became the first junior to win the women’s race at the GIANT Tugby Ronde van Wymeswold in June and won the junior national time trial title in July. In Montréal on 22 September she finished third in the junior time trial behind Poland’s Maria Okrucińska and Belgium’s Yana Decruyenaere, seven hundredths of a second ahead of Switzerland’s Anja Grossmann.

Heverin, from Belfast, was also in her first junior season. She won the Irish elite criterium title in Dublin in May, aged 16, and both junior titles at the Irish road championships in June, taking the road race by three minutes 51 seconds after riding some 40 kilometres alone. She dedicated that win to Shane O’Brien, the camsmajaco team-mate who had died in a training crash earlier that month. In July she won the junior points race at the European track championships in Cottbus, and in August the final stage of the Vuelta a Cantabria.

Lewis was sixth in both the time trial and the road race at the junior national championships, and seventh overall at Wymeswold. Ward was sixth at the Maria Thompson Memorial Road Race in August and eighth at the KLM Taxis Women’s GP in September.

Two of the three newcomers follow sisters into the team. Yamina Clay (VC Londres), Aalia’s younger sister, was second overall at the Youth Tour of Kent and third overall at the Isle of Man Youth Tour, both rounds of the British Cycling Youth Circuit Series. Millie Boothman, who joins from Glasgow Riderz, is the younger sister of Erin Boothman, a multiple junior track world champion who rode for Tofauti Everyone Active in 2024 and 2025 and now races for Liv AlUla Jayco’s Continental team. Millie was third in the Youth A girls’ competition at the Dundee round of the National Youth Omnium in May.

Robertson, who rides for Clifton CC on the road and Team Ohten on the track, won three medals at the national youth track championships in Manchester in August: silver in the Madison with Olivia Smallshaw, and bronze in the individual pursuit and the elimination race. On the road she was second at the Hog Hill round of the Youth Circuit Series in May.

Five riders age out of the junior ranks. Megan Cherry, second in the junior national road race after a 45-kilometre solo, joins Simpson Nouvelles. Zoe Roche, fourth in that race, has joined Decathlon CMA CGM’s cyclocross team for the winter and has been reported by Daniel Benson as a signing for the French team’s new women’s road squad. Ruby Isaac, the 2025 junior national road race champion, Gabriella McHugh, second in this year’s junior national time trial and 10th in the time trial at the world championships, and Seren Thomas also move up. Where those three will race in 2027 has not yet been announced.

Melanie Rowe, who left the team mid-season, is not part of the line-up. She was third in the junior national road race in July, won the Scottish senior and junior road race titles in August and was the best-placed British rider in the junior road race at the world championships in 16th.

It leaves a squad of four second-year juniors and three first-years.

Featured image: SWpix.com