Archie Ryan has confirmed he is back to top climbing form ahead of some big challenges to come this year, which should include taking on Tour de l’Avenir with the Irish team for the first time.
While the Irish team for the race is not yet confirmed, Ryan’s climbing abilities make him an automatic choice for the race, which he missed last year due to injury.
Those injury issues – related to his ACL – resulted in the 20-year-old from Rathmichael, south Dublin, missing the 2021 season. That was followed by a bout of illness in May of this year, after which Ryan took a while to move up through the gears and find his climbing legs again.
However, at Sazka Tour (2.1) last week in the Czech Republic he took the best results of his career on very hilly terrain. In a race featuring World Tour teams like Bora-hansgrohe, Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux and BikeExchange-Jayco and a whole host of ProContinental squads, Ryan excelled.
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He placed 7th on stage 2 – a summit finish in Pustevny – before taking 13th on the summit finish of stage 3 to Dlouhé Stráně. He rounded off the race with 12th in the final stage to Šternberk.
On each occasion Ryan climbed in the select group and his performances through the race result in a final general classification position of 6th, just 20 seconds down on winner Lorenzo Rota (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux).
Ryan said he was very happy with how the race had panned out, even though he and his Jumbo Visma Development team mate Johannes Staune-Mittet had tried to attack the front group on the final day but were heavily marked.
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“It was a really good few days of racing and I’m happy with the performance,” Ryan said. “It’s good to be back at a good level after struggling for form since being sick in May.”
Ryan said that after the opening flat stage in the Czech Republic, stages 2 to 4 were raced on “brutal courses”, with the climbs splitting the field each time.
“I had a good day on the stage 2 mountaintop finish; being up there for the win. The stage 3 was also a mountaintop finish, on a steeper longer climb. On paper it should have been better as the climb was more suited to me. But I didn’t feel as good.
“I finished at the back of the front group, just was missing 1 per cent there and lost 14 precious seconds which cost me in the end. The last stage was super mountainous in the first half before entering 7km circuit with a 1km cobbled climb.
“I felt great again and made the select group of the top seven or so GC riders got away the last time up. I tried attacking with my teammate who was also there, but everyone was extremely alert and we were all too well matched.
“We caught a lot of the breakaway, which made the group bigger and unfortunately I got boxed in in the sprint. But I moved up to 6th on GC and 2nd in the youth classification, so I can’t complain.
“It was probably my best result as it was a UCI 2.1, with three World Tour teams. It was super, super tight on GC, it was all really close. We were extremely well-matched to each other and there was no stand-out rider that rode away or anything. So I can be proud of the result and I’m looking forward to the next races.”
