McLaughlin launches himself as Belgian elite champ Dupont drives Monday’s escape in Ooigem
Ronan McLaughlin says he is coming into what he believes is his best condition ever, with the Tour of Britain his key aim in the weeks ahead as well as a possible ride in the elite World Road Race Championships in Valkenburg next month.
The An Post-Sean Kelly rider was third in a kermesse in Ooigem, west Flanders, on Monday after having taken himself off to the Ardennes region for a weekend of big training miles on his own in preparation for the Tour of Britain.
“I went into it not really expecting much because I’d done a hard weekend; 7 hours on Saturday and then 6½ hours on Sunday,” he told stickybottle of Monday’s race from his base in Belgium.
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The race split to pieces in crosswind sections on a flat course over 126km until a select group emerged in the closing laps. McLaughlin said while he felt strong, when some attacks went in the last four or five laps he took a chance in letting two riders go clear to force others to close them down.
However, when the gap continued to grow he decided to take off on his own, riding the last two laps solo but not managing to catch the duo up front. The race was won by Belgian elite national champion Timothy Dupont.
McLaughlin said he was happy with his ride, entering the race as he did simply to “top up” on his training miles from last weekend.
“I’m close enough now to the best condition I have ever been in,” he added.
Currently shortlisted – with Matt Brammeier and Philip Deignan - for the last of three berths in the Irish team for the elite Worlds, McLaughlin said the Tour of Britain had always been the main end of season goal and that those plans have not changed.
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“I think everyone knows that I’m a very proud Irishman and even to get the call to say I had been shortlisted was a huge honour. Obviously Roche and Martin are picked already and rightly so. I’ve done the U23 World Championships before and the Europeans so I would definitely love to go to the Worlds this time.”
“But it is all about staying focussed now on the races I have coming up including the Tour of Britain. I want to be aggressive there and get in the moves and really chase a result. And if I got to the Worlds by doing that I’d obviously be delighted.”
While happy with his season – during which he has won a number of Irish races - he believes one or two big wins have just about eluded him. He feels if he had closed out those opportunities they would have made a good year a great one.
One of those near misses came on stage 4 of the An Post Rás back in May when a solo escape of over 70kms came up short by just 150metres, as he was overhauled in sight of the finish line in Bundoran.
“You don’t get a chance to win a stage like that too often,” he recalls.
“I have probably thought about that every day. But I don’t kick myself and I don’t blame anybody. I gave as much as I had; I couldn’t have given it any more. And then in France last month I was doing the Kreiz Breizh stage race and I was caught 1km from the line on the last stage. Then the following week in a kermesse in Belgium I was caught with just 500 metres to go.”
“So maybe you just need that bit of extra luck and if I had gotten even one of those wins it would have really added to my season. But we still have a lot of races left apart from the Tour of Britain and even the Worlds.”
With his focus now very much on racing hard in the two months remaining of the season, his thoughts have not yet turned to next year.
He said the An Post-Sean Kelly team would arrive in Britain a number of days before the Tour of Britain and he would use that time to focus on the stages ahead, study the routes more closely and try to identify the days where aggressive breakaway riding would be more likely to prosper.
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