Eddie Dunbar has taken a really strong result on the kind of stage that teams in the paid ranks would watch for emerging riders (Photo: Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
Eddie Dunbar has taken the best result of his fledgling career after enjoying an uneventful day on the fourth and final stage of the Trofeo Karlsberg in Germany and maintaining his runner-up slot overall.
While Cycling Ireland sourced him an aero helmet and disc wheel for the 8.8km stage 3 time trial yesterday evening, the fancied teenager had no time trial bike.
Such a machine would undoubtedly have brought him the fraction over 1 second per kilometre he needed in the test to take yellow jersey on the day and perhaps have run out the overall winner rather than runner-up.
The final leg today was a circuit race road stage with 20km laps to be negotiated five times and with a climb on each loop in which Dunbar finished in the bunch with no major changes to the general classification.
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The event was a Junior Nations Cup race, with strong national selections from all over the world riding and with the Irish team facing the opposition they will meet next month at the European Championships in Switzerland and also the World Championships in Spain in September.
Dunbar’s profile has increased hugely since he turned junior last year and he has won a whole series of races, including the junior national time trial title and the Junior Tour of Ireland.
Last month when guesting for the Nicolas Roche Performance Team at the three-stage, two-day Trophee Centre Morbihan Nations Cup race in France he was third on the final stage.
In March he rode two races in Belgium to get more international experience and lapped a high-quality field in the Harze-GD Prix Guidon D’Or junior circuit race.
Those foreign results were fantastic and his wins, and manner of his riding, has been hugely impressive at home this season and last.
But his ride this weekend in animating the racing with his aggression and strength and still getting big results firmly ushers him onto the world stage.
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On the back of that ride he will be watched by the other nations in the upcoming Europeans.
In Germany this weekend, Dunbar placed 5th on Friday’s opening stage after making his way into the 10-man breakaway and scaling the final climb to the finish very well.
He still had plenty in the tank on that final climb despite pressing for home in a two-man move earlier in the race before the main breakaway pulled clear.
Of the other riders in the Irish team, Craig McAuley, deputising for Dylan O’Brien who had to withdraw with a chest infection last week, was next best of the Irish in 28th at 1:20. Michael O’Loughlin was 30th on the same time and Daire Feeley 40th also on the same time.
O’Leary’s Stone Kanturk rider Dunbar then made his way into the break on yesterday morning’s 79 kilometre road stage and that eight-man escape came home 26 seconds ahead of the peloton which contained just 46 riders.
O’Loughlin, Shanahan, Feeley and McAuley were all in that group on what was a very hard and hilly stage.
Dunbar then took seventh in the time-trial yesterday evening, 28 seconds behind stage winner Lennard Kamna of Germany.
He stayed 2nd overall after the 8.8km time trial and was just nine seconds off the Slovenia yellow jersey; the kind of margin that would surely have been closed by having access to a time trial bike.
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