The emotion on Ian Richardson's face in Skerries tells the tale of an amazing ride for the UCD CC man, who took two county rider awards and the classification after eight days mixing it with the pros (Photo: David McVeigh - The Belgian Project)
If Ian Richardson never gets another result in his cycling career he’ll forever be able to say he held his own against the very best riders in the An Post Rás for the entire race.
Holding the county rider jersey for the week is something we believe has never been accomplished before.
And as well as that quite extraordinary feat; for a man who has never won a road race, a top 10 overall in a UCI-ranked stage race was the icing on the cake for him.
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Standing on the podium yesterday before a huge following, chants of ‘Ian-o, Ian-o’ rang out around Skerries and Richardson struggled to hold back the tears
“I’m absolutely ecstatic,” he told stickybottle as the pats on the back rained down on him.
Richardson not only took the county rider prize, he went toe to toe with the pro riders and finished 10th overall in the Rás; an amazing result (Photo: George Doyle)
“It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling now, it’ll probably hit me in a couple of hours.
“But I’m delighted to be in Skerries and to be in the top 10 on general classification is a bonus on top of getting the top county rider prize.”
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The UCD CC man had to be vigilant all week but grew in confidence as the race progressed.
And with the help of his team, managed to stave off the challenge of all comers to stay in the blue jersey.
Richardson was on the podium every day on the Rás and really seemed to take on the mantle of a category leader as the days went on (Photo: Paul Mohan - Sportsfile)
“Today was really tough, there were relentless attacks,” he said of the final stage from Drogheda to Skerries.
“It was very fast and almost lined out for the entire day.
“I think we got the stage completed in just under three hours so it was very, very fast and very tough.”
Asked what he’ll do for the rest of the season he said: “I’ll just be doing time-trials up until the nationals at the end of June.
“I’m stopping road races now and focussing on getting my thesis written by August and after that I’ll start training again and see if I can get a job afterwards.”
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