Ireland's Matt Teggart looked like he'd been to war after yesterday's road race at the European Championships in Glasgow.
Matt Teggart finished on a savage day at Euros
Matt Teggart has said it took all his resolve to survive Sunday’s elite men’s road race at the European Championships.
The 22-year-old is riding this year with Team Wiggins; a Continental outfit with an international programme.
For him, riding against some of the best WorldTour riders in the sport over 230km was a new experience.
However, though the Glasgow course and the wet conditions split the field, and two thirds of the riders abandoned, Teggart survived.
He was the youngest to finish and the only Irish rider to stay the course in what was a savage race.
Matt Teggart finished in 38th, some 2:57 behind winner Matteo Trentin (Italy).
“It was tough; that’s one of the toughest days I’ve ever had a bike to be honest,” said Teggart at the finish.
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“So I’m delighted I got around. This is my first ever major championships. I’m still in the U23 category.
“So I’d no experience of racing these guys or this sort of distance before. It was always going to be tough.
“And then the weather here; and it’s such a tight circuit as well. It really was a hard day out so I’m delighted to have finished, and hung on to the end.”
Teggart added he had to call upon a “never say die attitude” to make it to the finish.
“I knew I had it in me. It’s (about) trying to prove that; to show it,” he said. “I treated every lap as my last.
"It’s was (a case of) just go as hard as I could on every lap. And if I blew up, I blew up. Thankfully I made it to the end.
“I haven’t dug that deep just to get to the finish in a long, long time. I’m happy with the result.
"Just to finish on a day like that was the big goal. And early on it didn’t look likely.
“And I went as hard as I could to stay at the front of the race. Luckily the legs weren’t so bad and I could keep the pace of the big boys.”
I think the face of @matthew_teggart says it all. Only Irish finisher on what he described as his toughest in the saddle. 38th place finish after nearly 6 hours in saddle @RTEsport @IreCyclingFed #TeamIreland ?? pic.twitter.com/kJJe4KRSa5
— Darren Frehill (@Darrenfrehill) August 12, 2018
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