Conor Murphy went into Rás Tailteann as one of the young riders to watch, and carrying big hopes for Team Ireland, though things did not work out as planned (Photo: Toby Watson)
By Shane Stokes
Prior to the Rás Tailteann it seemed that Conor Murphy might be one of the key performers for Team Ireland. He raced to a superb silver medal in last year’s European junior championship time trial and is now under the guidance of the Decathlon CMA CGM Development team, the youth squad of Decathlon’s WorldTour outfit.
However, things didn’t go to plan on Rás Tailteann for the 19-year-old, with the Co Louth rider not starting stage three.
Stickybottle spoke to Team Ireland manager Martyn Irvine to understand what happened.
“It was a bit of a gamble. Conor has not had a great early season so we were trying to give him a bit of a good experience here,” he said on Saturday.
“But he had a bit of an injury last week, damaged ligaments in his ankle due to a crash, and he carried the injury into the Rás. We hoped that he could race into the race, that it would heal itself and he would feel good with himself.
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“However he had a spill on the second stage, crashing into a ditch after rain heading out the road. That doubled down on the injury.”
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Murphy finished stage two and could have continued, but spoke to his Decathlon team about the situation.
“I think he had a talk with a few experts and they advised him,” Irvine said. “The advice of the powers that be was that it was not worth it for the sake of the season, so I think he made a good decision to stop.”
Irvine said that he understood that Murphy headed to the Santry Sports Clinic on Friday evening and got a scan.
“I would say it is a case of rest and ice and all that sort of usual tedious stuff you have to do.”
Team Ireland riders were present in many attacks during the race, including juniors Hugh Og Mulhearne and Fionn Killeen.
Liam Crowley had hoped to bid for the overall but lost time on stage one due to a crash. He shifted his focus to the mountains competition and dominated that.
He clocked up 58 points, 27 more than the next closest rider Ewan Mackie (Connaught Cycling).
