Sean Lacey is all smiles after doing more than enough to win back-to-back National Road Series titles at this weekend's Laragh Classic (Pic: John Hammer)
Lacey and McCrystal win National Road Series
Aqua Blue Sport Academy's Sean Lacey and recent double para-cycling world champion Eve McCrystal have taken this year's Cycling Ireland National Road Series titles after a dramatic finale.
With McCrystal in South Africa on international duty as Katie George-Dunlevy's pilot, the Garda CC rider missed the seventh and final round at Saturday's Friends First Laragh Classic.
Her lead going in to the 97km test was substantial, but not unassailable, second-placed Katharine Smyth capable of taking the overall title with victory or second place.
Team Madigan rallied in support for Smyth in the race, keeping her in the front group, but it was not enough.
National Champion Lydia Boylan won, with Omagh Three-Day victor Alice Sharpe in second, last year's National Road Series winner Claire McIlwaine taking third.
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Smyth finished fourth securing second place in the league, with McCrystal the new Joe Daly Cycles Women's National Road Series Champion after winning four of the seven races and finishing second a further twice.
Katharine Smyth (rear, red) held her own against National Champion Lydia Boylan (second wheel) and Omagh Three Day winner Alice Sharpe (lead) (Pic: John Hammer)
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In the men's league, Mark Dowling's Gas Networks Ireland Nenagh Classic win back in April had kept him at the top of the table all season.
Then Aqua Blue Sport Academy's stars came in to form, Matteo Cigala winning the Brian McNamara GP, Mark O'Callaghan the Mullingar GP, and Sean Lacey finishing second in the John Beggs Memorial Road Race.
The trio were second, third, and fourth behind Dowling coming in to the Laragh Classic and worked as a unit to ensure the overall title was taken by an Aqua Blue man.
That rider this time was Lacey, the Tralee man winning it for the second year in succession after finishing third to Philip Lavery and Adam Stenson in the race.
Sean Lacey (second wheel) attacks Mark Dowling (bottle) on the Wicklow Gap. Dowling went on to finish 10th.
Cycling Ireland Men's National Road Series
1 Sean Lacey (Aqua Blue) 162pts
2 Mark Dowling (Unattached) 148pts
3 Matteo Cigala (Aqua Blue) 144pts
= Mark O'Callaghan (Aqua Blue) 144 pts
5 Adam Stenson (Team Bikeworx) 133pts
6 Conn McDunphy (Lucan CRC) 114pts
7 Dermot Trulock (Lucan CRC) 106 its
= Sean Moore (Team Bikeworx) 106pts
9 Craig Rea (Phoenix CC) 94pts
10 Angus Fyffe (Omagh Wheelers) 85pts
Joe Daly Cycles Women's National Road Series
1 Eve McCrystal (Garda CC) 230pts
2 Katharine Smyth (Team Madigan) 215pts
3 Claire McIlwaine (Phoenix CC) 145pts
4 Orla Walsh (Scott Orwell) 141pts
5 Fiona Guihen (Black Rose Racing) 126pts
6 Sinnead Oakes (De Ronde Van Cork) 100pts
7 Joanna Bula (Lakeside Wheelers) 86pts
8 Lydia Boylan (Team WNT) 80pts
= Niamh O'Donovan (Dungarvan CC) 80pts
10 Alice Sharpe (NCC Kuota Torelli) 70pts
= Kate Earlie (St Tiernan's CC) 70pts
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