Philip Lavery (leading) rode today like he always does; from the front and with a big heart. He may have been forced to settle for silver, but has already won four times in France this year and a really big victory is surely just around the corner (Photo: Toby Watson)
After a good early season riding for French club AC Bisontine, where he notched up four wins, Philip Lavery confirmed his status as one of the best young talents in the country when he put in another aggressive performance to take silver at the national road race championships in Carlingford.
Alongside eventual winner Matt Brammeier, Lavery was one of only two riders to have stayed in the front group throughout the 183km race.
He first went clear with Brammeier, eventual bronze medallist Damien Shaw of Aquablue and UnitedHeathcare pro Philip Deignan on the second of 14 laps.
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With Shaw dropping back to the bunch shortly after, the three pre-race favourites found themselves out front very early on and were slowly opening the gap on a chase group containing Sam Bennett (An Post), Connor Dunne (IV Tekniks) and three time champion David McCann (Synergy Baku) even though the wind was not very favourable for such a small escape group.
“When the course is like that and it’s windy and it’s hard, you’ve got to attack it,” said Lavery afterwards.
“You’ve got to take the race head on and go for it. That was the only tactic today and it almost worked out.”
When Deignan slid off on a corner in Carlingford village on lap four, Brammeier and Lavery were left up front alone for another lap.
Deignan, although he was up off the ground pretty quickly, found his chain wrapped up in his derailleur and the chasers had gone past by the time he managed to untangle it and got a shove off from Gerry Beggs in neutral service.
Although he had rejoined the leaders by the next time around, the in-form Letterkenny man later abandoned.
“Philip Deignan was very unlucky,” said Lavery afterwards.
“Everybody saw that corner yesterday and we said it was going to be tricky in the village. It was very slippery and very technical and he was just very unlucky. If Philip didn’t crash it would have been a different race.”
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With a larger chase group of 10 later merging with the six leaders, Lavery was alert enough to follow the next moves and stayed in contention until he had just Brammeier and Shaw left with him going out on the penultimate lap.
“I was slightly worried when the big group came across because you can never discount the An Post riders when they have numbers, and Sam Bennett is always a dangerman. You don’t want to bring Sam to the line because he’ll beat you in the sprint and that’s a fact. He’s a very good sprinter.”
“I think we were wary of that and some of the domestic riders were very strong today. Conor Murphy was very strong and Damien Shaw too. He was really honest and rode hard in the break.”
“I think he was just lacking the speed we have from riding the bigger races but it didn’t show until right at the very end. He was very strong today.”
“Matt’s a specialist breakaway rider, which is probably my thing too. I’m not an out and out sprinter. I’m not a climber but I can do a bit of everything. Matt’s kind of the same and you have to respect somebody who’s already won three national titles.”
In the sprint to the line, Shaw led out with Brammeier cannily taking up the prime sprinter’s spot at the back of the trio in the final few hundred metres. The Champion Systems pro then cleverly used a traffic island in the middle of the road with 200m to go and jumped up the right hand side as the other two went left.
“Damien knew he had nothing in the sprint and he was on the front,” said Lavery of the final gallop.
“Ideally, I would have liked to have been behind Brammeier but I thought I’d have the reaction time to go with him. I’ve beaten Matt in sprints before and I think I’m still thinking like a sprinter. I believed right up until the last moment that I could do it.”
“When he went, I reacted but my legs just didn’t have it. That’s being honest. It wasn’t gear selection or anything like that. I just didn’t have it.”
Although he improved one place from last year’s bronze medal ride in Clonmel, Lavery was disappointed, possibly aware that a national champion’s jersey would have gone a long way to helping him secure that elusive professional contract for next season.
“I felt really good. I have some good form. I had a month’s training and then rode the Tour de Beauce in Canada and came home for this.”
“This was one of my goals this year. In the end I got second but it could have gone my way as well. I wanted the jersey. I wanted the gold medal. The silver... it’s nice. Maybe in a couple of year’s time I’ll appreciate it more but today I’m really disappointed.”
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