The bunch digs in on an aggressive opening stage to the Gorey Three Day today, though a bad car crash unrelated to the race on the riders' route forced the abandonment of the stage with 3km remaining (Photo: Amy-Norah Farrell)
By Amy-Norah Farrell
The Gorey Three-Day got off to a shaky start today, Saturday, with stage 1 abandoned early due to a road traffic collision in the final few kilometres.
An official general classification has been released this evening, with 11 riders who were in a break finishing a little over one minute ahead of the bunch.
The riders have been credited with the time gap on the rest of the field and so start tomorrow morning’s road stage with a very clear advantage. However, no stage result is being issued for today.
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Those in that escape included: visiting rider Justus Ossege (teambikeonline) along with Mark Reilly (LCRC), Paul Kinch (Slipstream), Billy Purcell (Usher IRC), Robin Seymour (Epic MTB/Expert), John O’Shea (Carlow RCC), Mark McGavley (Mad MTB), James Pittman (Cork County CC), Phillipe Bourdarins (Orwell CC), Karl Stafford (Waterford Racing) and Marc Gater (Waterford Racing).
They now share the leader’s jersey heading into the early morning time trial in the morning.
Today’s opener started off with breaks going early, but nothing could stick. Hackettstown proved to be testing, with the bunch stretching out along the climb, but coming back together with very few casualties.
A break of five riders made it 22 seconds away, with Darragh Zaidan (Adamstown CC), Dermot White (LCRC), Daniel Merriman (Waterford RC), Martin Meschkat (Teambikeonline) and Craig Arrigon (SDCC) fighting to stay ahead of the peloton.
The gap continued to fluctuate over the following kilometres from 25 seconds to 58s. Merriman was the first to lose contact with the leaders, followed by Dermot White.
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But with the speed of the bunch steadily increasing, it was only a matter of time before Zaidan, Meschkat and Arrigon accepted the inevitable and waited to be swallowed up by the main field having passed through Carnew.
There was still hope for riders who wanted to break away, with Craanford only five kilometres away. Riders took the climb in their stride the first time up, but the biggest test was still to come in the shape of racing up the KOH twice more.
Second time up, and the pressure was beginning to show. The field was beginning to string out, with riders fighting for positions.
As the bunch descended into Camolin, a break was starting to form and as the field hurtled along the Gorey road, the bunch started to get organised to try and pull them back.
However, they would never realise their full potential, as the race was stopped when Gardai asked organisers to halt the action due to a serious car accident on the road into the finish around 3km from the stage end.
The riders were all halted on the road and sat there for around 20 minutes before being told there would be no more racing.
Organisers then had the difficult task of deciding what to do in terms of a stage result and, perhaps more importantly, whether the time gaps at the point the race was stopped should be applied to a general classification.
With the race abandoned, the riders left the circuit not knowing what would happen next.
After much discussion it was decided that the 11 riders in the break would be given the same time, 52 seconds ahead of the next two riders, with the bunch 1m02s behind the break.
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