The early weeks of Aaron Buggle’s year may have been ruined by a crash but he’s well on the way back
By Brian Canty
New Rapha Condor JLT professional, Aaron Buggle took in his first race of 2013 on home soil yesterday, after a crash in Australia last month required him to have surgery on a nasty elbow injury.
Buggle managed to get into the placings at the Ned Flanagan Trophy in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, after winner Barry Meade (Planet Tri) and Eoin Morton (UCD CC) had fled the lead group to take 1st and 2nd spots.
The Meath man was third in the gallop for the minor placings, taking 5th behind Robin Kelly (Aqua Blue) in 3rd and Paidi O’Brien (Planet Tri) in 4th.
Buggle had been in a group going across to some riders up the road when he and those he was with – including Philip Lavery and Stephen Halpin – went the wrong way.
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Buggle parted company from the others, opting to turn off in the confusion about the right way to go. And despite doing a small loop that put some extra kilometres onto his race distance he managed to make contact with the front of the race.
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It was a decent performance from a man who had come off in the Herald Sun Tour early last month when he dislocated his shoulder, fractured his elbow, tore several tendons and suffered severe road rash and bruising.
He had a short period on the sidelines in Australia as his team mates continued with their racing schedule Down Under. However, he was able to return to training faster than expected and only returned to Ireland late last week, lining out for yesterday’s race a little jetlagged.
He said the impact of the travel, not to mention the crash, put him under pressure yesterday.
"I had a chat with my coach Jonathan Gibson of www.seeng.ie and we were deciding whether I'd race due to the long haul flight, the lack of sleep over the last few days and the transition to 5 degrees from 40 degrees heat. We ended up deciding to race but with an open mind. Unfortunately in the last 10km I started cramping pretty badly and couldn't have done more really. I needed to be up the road for the win because the elbow still isn’t sprint ready, but it is improving. The lads (Meade and Morton) had clipped away by then anyway so it didn't matter. I attacked with a few kilometres to go but had to stop and freewheel because I was cramping so badly. Aside from that, everything is going well with my form and Rapha Condor JLT and I'm building form for the next big target which is The Tour of Normandie in five weeks time."
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