Having missed the main move of the day in yesterday's national road race championships, Dan Martin spent the rest of the race chasing. Seen here in a small group trying to get off the front with Fraser Duncan (Northern CC-Dave Kane), Connor McConvey (Synergy Baku) and Patrick O'Brien of Orwell Wheelers (Photo: George Doyle)
By Gerard Cromwell
Although he was one of the favourites at yesterday’s national road race championships, Dan Martin missed the vital early move and found himself chasing for much of the race.
“The group went on the first lap and when a group like that gets away, you’re not going to get back into the race,” the Garmin Sharp pro said afterwards.
Despite finding himself in the fourth group on the road after four laps, Martin managed to ride through most of those ahead, joining up with Aquablue’s Damien Shaw a lap later to come within 15 seconds of catching the break and contesting the sprint for silver.
Advertisement
“The way the peloton is here it’s just a different way of racing. A strong group goes and it’s just cat and mouse behind.
“Everyone knows who the strong guys are and when there’s nowhere on the circuit you can make a real difference there’s no way of winning."
The two-man move of Damien Shaw and Dan Martin was a really strong one, but they simply ran out of road to mop up all of those ahead and half the breakaway, especially, Sean Downey and Ryan Mullen, were simply too strong (Photo: George Doyle)
However, Martin nonetheless praised the organiser's selection or course.
“It was a really good racing circuit but, for myself, it just didn’t suit me. It was just flat and fast. It was hard at the end but that comes from not racing for nine weeks.”
Having won the 262km Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic last year and come within 200metres of doing the same again earlier this year, Martin lamented the fact that the championship was only 170km and would have liked another lap.
“I don’t feel like I’ve really raced, so it’s a bit disappointing that there wasn’t another lap but maybe if there was I wouldn’t have had the legs to do anything anyway.
Related News
“The An Post boys rode incredibly well. They obviously heard that me and Damien were coming across and they put the hammer down.
“In the end, there was a really worthy winner and I’m really happy for Ryan."
Having just left the last group on the road, Martin still had time for a cheeky grin on his across way to the front (Photo: Gary Guildea)
Despite his obvious disappointment at missing out on a chance to take his second national title, Martin spent plenty of time after the finish line posing for photos with fans of all ages.
“The organisation was fantastic today,” he said of the Lakeland Wheelers promotion.
“There was a great atmosphere at the finish and the road surface was impeccable. Hopefully the racing was good to watch and everybody enjoyed it.”
Having broken his collarbone in his last outing, the opening day of the Giro d’Italia in Belfast; Martin is suffering no ill effects from the incident apart from maybe a lack of racing, which he will remedy by competing in the Tour of Austria from Sunday.
“To be honest it’s just nice to be able to finish a race without crashing. I haven’t done that for a while.
“Obviously I was back for Cycle4Life but I haven’t really done much training lately. I’m building up for the Vuelta so I don’t really want to be training too hard yet.
“I go to Austria next week and that’ll be my first stage race back.”
Martin finished 8th on the day, just ahead of Aquablue's Neil Delahaye who had been in the early break.
Topics
