Ryan Mullen powers his way to the elite and u23 national titles today as the race heads out onto the penultimate lap in Multyfarnham.
By Gerard Cromwell
Already renowned as a top quality time triallist and track specialist, 19-year-old Ryan Mullen showed he has more strings to his bow when he added the national road race title to his already impressive palmares today.
Although he was only awarded the U23 title after clocking the fastest time at the national time trial championship on Thursday, the An Post Chain Reaction youngster stormed away from a 10 man lead group on the penultimate of nine laps in Multyfarnham to take both the U23 and elite road race titles today.
Mullen had two teammates: Jack Wilson and Sean Downey for company in the original breakaway group as well as US based pro Stephen Clancy (Novo Nordisk), British based Dominic Jelfs (Madison Genesis) and domestic riders Ali Macauley (Phoenix), Paidi O’Brien (Osborne Meats), Roger Aiken (Banbridge), Bryan McCrystal and Neil Delahaye (both Aquablue).
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With Dan Martin (Garmin Sharp) and a third Aquablue rider, Damien Shaw, halfway to bridging the two minute gap to the leaders, Mullen went solo with a lap and a half to go.
“There were a lot of strong guys in the break,” said Mullen afterwards.
“We had three riders there and all the guys up there were strong powerhouses, so I kind of knew it would last most of the race.
“I didn’t think it could last the whole race. I was expecting Brammeier and Martin to come over at some point. I knew Martin and Shaw were coming but it was two of them against 10 of us and we were all working well together.”
Ryan Mullen pops open the champagne as he celebrates his national road race title in Multyfarnham today.
With Paidi O’Brien expected to be the fastest in the lead group, the three An Post Chain Reaction riders began to attack going out onto the penultimate lap in an effort to split the group up in their favour.
“The second last time through the finish things started getting a bit nervous,” says Mullen.
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“Sean (Downey) got away with Paidi and they got brought back. I went. I got brought back. There was a bit of cat and mouse going on.
“I didn’t even attack. I kind of rolled of the front and got a gap and it held at around 20 seconds for a few kilometres. There was still a long way to go and I thought ‘what have I done? I’m going to get absolutely murdered for this if I get caught.”
The course however played into the hands of the big strong rouleur, Mullen opening up a 15 second gap immediately and building on it to finish with a minute and 14 seconds lead at the finish.
“There were no massive hills. I kind of had the power to get over the rollier ones. Towards the end I was suffering a bit but I just persevered and luckily I didn’t get caught. The lads obviously did a good job behind, so it was a good day for the team.”
Mullen will be a great champion and may add a world TT title to his palmares before the season is out (Photo: Kevin Monaghan)
With Downey getting second ahead of O’Brien and Wilson taking fifth, An Post Chain Reaction also went home with the team prize while Conor Dunne gave them a clean sweep of the U23 prizes, finishing 15th to take the bronze behind Mullen and Wilson.
“I didn’t expect today’s result whatsoever,” beamed a delighted Mullen after donning his shamrock jersey of national champion.
“I didn’t put any pressure on myself coming into the road race after winning the time trial on Thursday. I haven’t done a ride of four hours in about three weeks, so to even finish the race I would have actually been pretty happy, but to win it is unbelievable.
“I don’t quite know how that’s happened!”
As elite champion, Mullen is now entitled to wear the shamrock jersey for the next 12 months in all of the pro races, something that should attract even more attention to the highly talented youngster.
“I’m really looking forward to racing in this jersey now,” he said. “Hopefully Kurt and the team will come up with a really nice design for it.
“It should give me a bit of a profile and get me noticed by the bigger teams. Hopefully some good things will come from it.”
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