Having gone into the Volta ao Algarve with hopes of a high overall placing with either Philip Deignan, Rory Sutherland or Marc de Maar, American pro continental team UnitedHealthcare’s plans began to go astray as early as stage one.
De Maar lost almost 13 minutes due to an allergic reaction to a bee sting, eventually withdrawing from the five-day race with illness. Stage three to Alto de Malhao saw Aussie team leader Rory Sutherland also get sick.
It was then up to Deignan, himself recovering from a chest infection, to ride for the overall classification, finishing a minute and a half behind stage winner Richie Porte of Sky.
The team had its fair share of mechanical problems too. Both Sutherland and Deignan were forced to change bikes in the final time trial, while Kai Reus’s handlebars came loose on the opening stage.
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“My tri-bars came off on one of the descents,” a disappointed Deignan told stickybottle after the final time trial.
“The aero lever just came off on me. I was going into a corner and got a bit of a shock, so I sat up and changed onto one of the spare bikes.”
Although he soldiered on to the finish, Deignan’s spare bike wasn’t much better however with his left tri bar visibly loose after the stage.
“From then on it was just a matter of riding to the finish,” he says.
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“It was a very technical course and you don’t want things like that happening to you so I kind of lost my head a little bit after that. It didn’t really matter. I might have been a minute or so quicker but that’s all.”
“We’ve had a pretty bad week in general," he says.
"Marc de Maar got sick pretty early in the race, then Rory got sick and I wasn’t in great shape, so the three guys who were here to try something didn’t really work out. I’m a little bit disappointed but I knew coming into the race that the preparation hadn’t gone according to plan so it was always going to be a case of taking it day by day. It’s the first race of the season so I’m not going to get upset about it. It’s early days.”
Originally pencilled in for the Tour of the Basque Country next, Deignan’s plans changed when his team didn’t get an invite to the Spanish race. He will now ride the Driedaagse Ouest Vlaanderen and another Belgian one day race with the squad.
Before that though he will pack his bags and move from his current base in Letterkenny to an apartment in Terenure, south Dublin, which he will share with Metaltek Scott rider Stephen Halpin.
“I’m going to be a city boy,” he laughs.
“I’m based at home now so the move is really just to be closer to the airport and also I’ll have the Wicklow Mountains on my doorstep for training. Dublin should be a few degrees warmer than Donegal too.”
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