By Brian Canty
Ronan McLaughlin has revealed how “amazing” it felt to be part of the three-man Irish team for the Elite Men’s World Road Race Championships in Limburg, Holland, on Sunday.
Despite finishing 105th, brought about by a crash with three laps to go which split the peloton, he described the whole day as “just incredible”.
“It was amazing. What was it, six and a half hours? It actually felt like one; it felt like the quickest race I’ve ever done it was over so soon. I just couldn’t believe it. I’ve done races before of maybe 120k and they felt much longer but I guess it must’ve been the atmosphere. It was just incredible; a wall of noise every time we went up the Cauberg.”
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Though thousands lined the streets for the gruelling 266 kilometre race, it was the throng of home support on the bottom of the climb that dwarfed the noise made by any other nation.
“It was massive, just unbelievable. Fantastic. After the finish I made a point of cycling back down the Cauberg which took me about 20 minutes because all the Irish fans were at the bottom of the climb on one particular corner. I just wanted to go down and show my face and thank them for their support.”
“It was actually unbelievable. No matter how much noise was there, you could still hear the Irish accents above all the others. There were so many Irish flags and Donegal flags. It was amazing,” he said.
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Though his own hopes of a result were obviously hampered by his role as a domestique for Nicolas Roche and Dan Martin, his day was ended when that massive crash took him and many more out.
“I just got stuck behind it but it didn’t make much difference between being dropped on that lap or a few laps later,” he explained.
“I was feeling good. It’s kind of hard to know if I would have been in that front group for the last three laps or so, we’d just done about 230k at that stage and I think that’s the longest I’ve ever been on a bike. So after that it would have been interesting to see how much longer I would’ve held out. But I am definitely happy. I came into it having never done that kind of distance or anything before so I was happy.”
The same cannot be said for his team leaders, however.
“They were looking to get better results,” McLaughlin conceded.
“They’re not delighted with the results (33rd and 34th) but I guess the way the race panned out there...I suppose they’ve accepted it. They would have loved to have done a bit better but they were in the front group so (it’s not that bad.)”
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