Damien Shaw and Dan Martin left it too late to bridge across to the day's breakaway group at the National Championships (Photo: Kevin Monaghan)
By Gerard Cromwell
As ‘one of the locals', there was a bit of pressure on Mullingar’s Damien Shaw to perform at yesterday’s national road race championship in Multyfarnham.
A silver medallist in last year’s event, Shaw however found himself stranded in the peloton as two of his Aquablue teammates sailed up the road in a 10 man breakaway on the opening lap.
An effort to get across later on with Dan Martin failed by just 15 seconds, with the duo having spent almost three laps chasing the front group on their own.
“It was tough. We left it a little bit too late,” admitted the Mullingar fireman.
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“We thought they might start attacking each other, splitting up a bit, but we were about a kilometre too late, which was unfortunate.”
With constant attacking on the opening lap, Shaw tried to ‘do the smart thing’ and keep an eye on the pre race favourites; Sam Bennett, Matt Brammeier and Martin, but they all missed the move too.
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Damien Shaw comes home in 7th place at the end of yesterday's title race, just ahead of Dan Martin and team mate Neil Delahaye (Photo: George Doyle)
“There were a lot of breaks and splits. It was hard to keep track of it all.
"The ‘smart’ or obvious thing to do was to hang around with the pros but it was unfortunate that there wasn’t maybe one or two more with me and Dan. That would have maybe made the difference in getting across, even a lap earlier.
"He was unbelievably strong. I was doing what I could but he’s a different calibre.”
On the line, the duo caught Shaw’s Aquablue teammate Neil Delahaye, who had been out front all day, and Shaw took seventh place ahead of Martin.
Although he didn’t go away with a medal this time around, he was happy enough with his day in the sun and with the race run by his former club Lakeside Wheelers.
“We had two men up the road, weren’t too far off the team prize, three in the top 10 and Bryan McCrystal was just a couple of inches away from a medal so we have to be happy.”
“I’ve done a few nationals and of course I’m going to be biased but the closed circuit was perfect. There was a huge crowd there. The organisation was absolutely brilliant and I think it was a great day for Lakeside Wheelers.”
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