John Rowan of McNally Swords CC took the coveted A3 road title last year, who will take the crown on a hilly course in Cork in a couple of weeks?
By Brian Canty
The organisers of next month's national junior and vets' time trial championships as well as the junior and A3 road title deciders have encouraged those interested in taking part to register as soon as possible.
The Osbourne Meats-Edge Sports Shop team from Cork, who are in their debut season and recently took a bronze medal through Paidi O'Brien at the national elite men’s road championships in Westmeath, are putting on a packed programme of racing over the weekend of August 16th and 17th in Blarney.
Top billing will be the national junior road race on Sunday morning where Fintan Ryan (Standard Life Nicolas Roche Performance Team) will start as defending champion but can expect a ferocious challenge from well over a dozen contenders.
Advertisement
Fintan Ryan has bagged a number of good wins in the junior road champion's jersey he won last year. Can he retain the title in Cork?
Last year as a first year junior, Ryan saw off the best efforts of Dylan O'Brien (O'Leary's Stone Kanturk) and Stephen Shanahan (Limerick CC) after they had been part of the day's breakaway that contested the finish.
But with riders like recently crowned Junior Tour of Ireland champion Eddie Dunbar (O'Leary's Stone Kanturk), his Irish teammates Michael O'Loughlin (Standard Life Nicolas Roche Performance Team) and Daire Feeley (Donamon Dynamos), to name but a few, it will be a very competitive event.
The course is very hilly and reaches gradients of 11 per cent in places, with 10 laps of 10.6km to be negotiated for the junior men.
Related News
The A3 road race will be held on the same day and is nine laps, or 95.6km. And the junior women’s road race is also being held on Sunday; five laps for a total race distance of 58km.
They will be run on the same course at the same time with the starts staggered from 12.30pm.
Those contests follow just one day after the vets’ and junior time trial title races. The junior men’s and veterans’ tests will be 40km on an out and back route, with the junior women racing against the clock for 15km.
Greg Swinand (UCD CC) will be the man to beat in the vets’ time trial, while Dunbar is the defending champion in the junior test.
However, O’Loughlin won the time trial in the Junior Tour and will be hard to beat, while Dylan O’Brien is also very good against the watch.
Josie Knight will be favourite for both the junior women's road and time trial titles; seen here on her way to pursuit silver last week.
Mark Downey, who won the Junior Tour time trial last year, has just won a silver medal in the points race at the European Track Championships in Portugal and will also be a hot favourite.
Josie Knight of O'Leary Stone Kanturk returned from Portugal with a silver medal from the pursuit and will be favourite for both the junior women's road race and time trial crowns.
We’ll have full previews a little closer to the races.
Sign-on for each event is €25. For an entry form containing all the details, click here.
Topics
