Guest rider Dowling in the breakaway last Sunday
By Brian Canty
The Dan Morrissey-Speedy spokes team got back from France last night, Wednesday, after the four-day Essor Breton in Lorient, Brittany; enduring just about the whole gamut of events a bike-race can throw at you.
Failed breakaways, crashes and illness were three negatives the Cork-based squad will look back on as they count down to the An Post Rás.
But there were some upsides too and Sean Lacey believes they achieved all they set out to, namely prepare for Ireland’s showpiece multi-stage race starting Sunday week in Dunboyne, Co. Meath.
“We did well, I was quite happy with our performance. For me that race was all about preparation for the Rás and it was good from that point of view.”
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Long rolling stages of over 100 miles with some tough climbs was, in Lacey’s estimation “perfect” preparation for what the Rás will throw up.
“The second stage of the Rás from Kilkenny to Gort will be kind of like the stages we were doing, that’ll be much like the terrain. It was great training and the speed was high so it was good to get that into the legs.”
The Croom-based Kerryman, who lectures in Maths in the Cork Institute of Technology, was in the top 30 going into the final stage on Tuesday, but had been sick since Sunday’s second stage. He decided to start the final day but realised after 30 miles that he was fighting a losing battle and he subsequently called it a day. It was, in his own words, “a tough decision” but “the right decision” to jack it.
“I could have finished, but I would have put my body under a lot of stress and I wouldn’t have recovered for the Rás so I raced for an hour and I knew I wasn’t right. I knew if I kept going I wouldn’t recover. But at the moment I actually feel very good, the legs are good but it’s just a head cold I have so once I get rid of that...”
“I was riding well enough but on the fourth day I could barely push the pedals. I progressively got worse so hopefully I’ll be better for the Rás. I knew if I kept going I’d only dig myself into a hole so I had to stop. It was a big call and it was tough. You never like pulling out of races and I could’ve soldiered on but for what? The goal was to go over there and prepare for the Rás.”
It wasn’t the only tale of woe for the team, with Joe Fenlon crashing heavily and mangling his bike, but luckily escaping serious injury. Mick Fitzgerald, winner of the John Drumm Memorial in Currow the last two years had hoped to ride well in the race but he came down with a bad illness and was forced to retire.
It now seems like his Rás is over too, which will be disappointing for him and the team after an excellent ride in the race last year where he forged his way into a decisive break on the second last stage, taking some KOH points along the way.
Team leader Timmy Barry has taken a spate of wins already this year and will lead the team at the Rás in 10 days’ time. He illustrated his strong form with a relatively stress-free four days.
Staying out of trouble and riding strongly against some of Europe’s most promising, the evergreen Passage man was just four minutes down on GC come the finish.
The team ‘borrowed’ Mark Dowling for the weekend from his usual DID Dunboyne squad and he fared very well, getting into a break on Sunday that was ultimately caught near the finish. But as Lacey remarked, “he got stuck in and wasn’t afraid of it.”
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Of Barry, he said: “Timmy was happy. He was of the same frame of mind as myself; knowing it was just preparation for the Rás.”
The eight-day now can’t come quickly enough, said Lacey.
“I’m looking forward to it now, I’m looking forward to having this weekend off now as well though and letting the legs come around. The appetite is really strong now for it.”
And what of his chances of a result? “There’s no reason why I couldn’t be able to aim for a top 10 on a stage. There’s a couple of stages I fancy for it, nice long rolling roads similar to what we had in France, so we’ll see.”
Of an Irish win, he reckons Adam Armstrong has what it takes to land a stage win.
“Well to get a stage win you’re going to do it one of two ways, you’re either going to win by yourself and I don’t know are there many Irish riders who can ride away by themselves, or else finish in a group of three or four and winning from that so if you’re thinking of a rider at the moment you’d have to say Adam Armstrong.”
Michael Fitzgerald
Paidi O’Brien and Fitzgerald
Sean Lacey
Tim Barry
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