CHEETAHS DUO IN PLZEN

OXFORD youngsters Ashton Boughen and Luke Killeen compete in semi-final 1 of the European Under-19 Championship at Czech venue Plzen on Saturday.

Boughen, who was sensational last weekend when representing GB in the U19 Pairs event in Poland, will be one of the favourites to qualify with a top eight finish enough to make it through to the Final in Germany in October.

For Killeen, this will be his first event in Europe and gets the call up due to his impressive fifth place finish in the British Under-21 Final at Glasgow earlier this month.

GB Youth Boss Neil Vatcher said: “From studying the starting list for this event this really does seem like an extremely hard semi-final, and most of the top riders from this age group seem to have been selected to ride in this qualifier.

“However, the top eight do qualify, and therefore I believe for both Ashton and Luke a minimum eight-point score is achievable, and hopefully we can get both boys into a European Final later in the season.”