# Reigning Irish sprint and keirin champion Orla Walsh confirms DerbyWheel switch

*By Simon | March 26, 2024*

![Reigning Irish sprint and keirin champion Orla Walsh confirms DerbyWheel switch](https://globalkeirin.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/434590712_7847774431933525_2385844389627129798_n-e1714061182911.jpg)

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## 󠀁[Reigning Irish sprint and keirin champion Orla Walsh confirms DerbyWheel switch](https://globalkeirin.com/2024/03/reigning-irish-sprint-and-keirin-champion-orla-walsh-confirms-switch-to-derbywheel/)󠁿

26 March 2024

Current Irish women’s elite sprint and keirin champion Orla Walsh has confirmed
that she is switching from UCI racing to DerbyWheel – and says she will ride her
first race of the year in one month’s time, implying that she will be taking
part in the
[Newport test event](https://globalkeirin.com/2024/03/one-month-to-go-what-do-we-know/)
in late April.

[Posting today on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/C4-_N_3N58u/), where
she has 237,000 followers, Walsh said she was ‘a little apprehensive but also
excited’ about returning to competition in one month’s time, after a few months
out.

Pressed for details in the comments, the eleven-time national champion confirmed
that she had now ‘packed it in from UCI racing’. Instead, she announced that she
would be joining ‘a brand new series of racing called DerbyWheelers _(sic)_
coming from Japanese Keirin racing’.

[Embed from Getty Images](http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/1242502600)

Walsh made her second appearance in the UCI Track Champions League in 2023,
finishing a very creditable 14th after a late call-up. But she seemed to be on
the brink of calling time on her track career, as her hopes faded of
representing Ireland at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

[Posting in February](https://www.instagram.com/p/C22vwriN-lv/), she declared
that she was back in training, with plans to compete in a ‘brand new racing
series’ – widely assumed to be DerbyWheel but not explicitly confirmed.

With
[no agreement in place between the UCI and DerbyWheel](https://globalkeirin.com/derbywheel-and-the-uci/)
, Walsh’s decision to compete in the new keirin series could theoretically mean
exclusion from UCI-managed racing, including the next Irish national
championships in August. But having ‘packed it in’ from a UCI perspective, such
a sanction seems not to concern her.

Walsh is not understood to have taken part in the induction sessions held during
December and January.
[Posts on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/C2kiIv4t5WE/) indicated that
she was back home in Dublin on the weekend of the Manchester induction.

**Categories:** Original
**Tags:** dwnews, riders