Conor Dunne is one of three Irish riders down to line out in Le Samyn tomorrow. It will be a tough day across the cobbles of Belgium against some of the very best.
There’s no shortage of Irish interest tomorrow in Le Samyn, the 200km one-day race featuring plenty of cobbles and WorldTour opposition.
Conor Dunne (Israel Cycling Academy), Ben Healy (Team Wiggins) and Canyon dhb’s Robert Jon McCarthy are down to start.
Of the three, Dunne has the most racing in his legs at this point of the season. He rode four stages of Vuelta a San Juan before illness forced him.
Then he raced the four-stage Tour of Antalya in Turkey where he took a solid result.
He was 5th overall in the latter after a very strong ride on the penultimate stage. On Sunday he rode Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and was a non-finisher.
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Healy, Ireland’s junior TT champion from last year, will be riding his first UCI-ranked race of the 2019 season.
Tomorrow’s race, with 16 sections of pavé, may prove very useful for him approaching the first U23 Nations Cup races of the year in Europe, if he gains selection for those.
McCarthy was in action in some of the Challenge Mallorca races last month. He will be stepping up several notches tomorrow at Le Samyn.
The Irish will be competing against a quality field that includes some of the biggest teams in the world.
Also in the peloton will be Lotto Soudal, Deceuninck-QuickStep and AG2R-La Mondiale.
Some of the ProContinental teams are also in action including Direct Energie, which counts last year’s Le Samyn winner Niki Terpstra in its line-up.
He claimed 3rd in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne at the weekend and goes into tomorrow’s UCI 1.1 ranked race as one of the favourites.
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