Ronan McLaughlin will be one of four Irish riders in the GP Pinot Cerami tomorrow, Thursday. He is pictured here leading a breakaway in last year’s Tour of Britain
By Brian Canty
The An Post-Chainreaction team are in action tomorrow, Thursday, in one of the more difficult UCI 1.1-ranked races on the Belgian calendar when they take part in the GP Pinot Cerami in the south west of the country.
The race has gained infamy over the years for its gruelling nature and will test the eight-man team who are still seeking a major win in the new season. But they’ve selected a strong line-up for tomorrow’s race, which is live on Eurosport 2 (UK) from 3pm.
Veteran Niko Eeckhout will lead the team in the race which will see Irish riders Ronan McLaughlin, Sam Bennett and Sean Downey all on the start-line. The remaining riders are new signings Glenn O’Shea, Aaron Gate and Shane Archbold while Belgian Alphonse Vermote completes the team.
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It’s a very strong line-up but so is the start-list and it includes ProTour teams like Lotto Belisol, Movistar and Vaconsoleil. There is also a good spread of ProContinental teams such as UnitedHealthcare and Champion System, with three-time Irish national champion Matt Brammeier leading the latter's assault.
Brammeier rode last weekend’s Volta a Limburg and finished in 37th place in a large group that came over the line over three minutes behind winner Rugider Selig (Katusha). But he’ll be pleased at how he’s been going of late, having made the breakaway at Dwars Door Vlaanderen recently.
Downey and McLaughlin were listed as non-finishers at Limburg last weekend, as were other team members Nicolas Vereecken, Jack Wilson and Laurent Van Den Bak.
But Niels Wytinck put in a superb ride, notching 13th while Mark McNally was 28th and Steven Van Vooren all came home in the bunch, though the latter did manage to get in one of the escapes during the day.
Gaeten Bille of Lotto Belisol is the defending champion at GP Pinot Cerami and he’s down to start tomorrow.
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