Wanaka teen Phoebe Young is one of the five-strong cycling team who will compete at the third Youth Olympic Games, held in Argentina this year.

The young athletes will compete in the 13-day Games in Buenos Aires from October 6-18 in a team comprising BMX, mountain bike and road riders.

Young is the Oceania under-19 winner and also New Zealand’s under-19 road time trial champion. She will compete in five Youth Olympic events: two mountain bike and three road races, in which she will work together with her teammate with the goal to get the fastest time over the set course.

The student, who is in her last year at Mount Aspiring College and wants to go to study Health Sciences at University of Otago explained, “The furthest [away] I’ve even raced internationally on the bike has been in Australia with girls I know so this will be a new experience for me.”

She hoped the team aspect would make it “slightly less daunting”.
The other four athletes include Jessie Smith, the BMX world champion in 2017, and Cailen Calkin, a three-time Challenge world champion. The pair will compete at the Games in the BMX racing against other riders of the same sex, their results will be combined, as medals are awarded to the team with the most points. The pair will then be joined by three mountain-bike riders with road experience, national under-19 mountain bike champion Samara Maxwell, Max Taylor (Palmerston North) and Phoebe Young.
Maxwell and Young will compete as a team in the female division.

The mountain bike and road riders will race in a criterium, time trial and road race with an eliminator and short track races for mountain bikes.
Cycling New Zealand HP Athlete Development Lead, Graeme Hunn said: "The Youth Olympic Games is an important international stage for our young riders to experience the Olympic values and to both experience and understand the challenges of a vast multisport global competition.”

He said they had selected “a strong group of outstanding young people who we believe will acquit themselves well in and out of competition”.

Phoebe leaves for Argentina on October 3.