Conor Dunne goes back into battle this weekend at the 1.UWT-ranked Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium, the first of the season's big one-day Classics. His mission for the race is to make the break and show off the Aqua Blue Sport colours. Have a read below of how (on earth) he manages to get into the break so often...gold!
By Brian Canty
Conor Dunne starts his first ever World Tour race in Europe tomorrow when he pins on numbers for the first classic of the season, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Temperatures of 10 degrees, clouds and a small chance of rain are forecast and it’ll be a world away from the sweltering heat of his first races with Aqua Blue Sport in Australia last month.
But having spent five years living in Belgium and the last few weeks training in Co Waterford where his girlfriend lives he reckons he’ll well prepared for anything tomorrow.
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“I think I perform better in the cold as opposed to the extreme heat,” he joked.
“The hard bit is going from Australian temperature to cold again, you struggle but I think I’ve had enough time to get used to cold weather. I was out last week without gloves on,” he grinned.
Dunne is one of two Irish riders in the team, Matt Brammeier the other, and he said he can’t wait to get stuck in.
“I’m really looking forward to it now," he said of what Tom Boonen called the first proper race of the year.
“It’s my first World Tour race in Europe so it will be tough and looking at the course, it’s pretty hard with lots of bergs and cobbled sections.
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“I know the roads pretty well because I lived around here for about five years so I know it’ll be a hard race.
“It’s cool to be in a European Classic race so I just wanna get stuck in and make the most of it.”
Dunne knows he won’t win the 198-kilometre contest but getting in the break is something he can do, and it’s something he has done a lot of throughout his career with An Post Chain Reaction and more recently, JLT Condor.
“Sometimes you go for quality over quantity,” he joked about his strategy.
“Some people do a couple of really good attacks; I just do loads of stupid attacks and hope one sticks!
“We’ll see…there’s a few of us trying to get in the break tomorrow to show off the colours.
“We’ve got a strong team so all round we can do a good race for sure.”
So, it’s somewhere between blind luck and pulling the trigger at the hardest moment?
“A bit of both I think…it’s always tough to get into it.
“A race like tomorrow there’ll be a lot of guys trying to go up the road in the early move but also tactically it makes it easier having someone up there and it all kicks off on the climbs.
“Nieuwsblad is always a war of attrition and there are one or two key climbs where it’ll really split up so you have to be in the front and also have the legs on the climbs.
“It’s kind of knowing when that pinch point will happen, so we’ll see…”
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