Bennett comes into the finish at the head of a small group (Photo: Rik Masil/The Belgian Project)
The Irish U23 team endured another day of bad luck at the weekend in the second of its two Nations Cup races, the ZLM Tour in Holland.
A breakaway group of 20 riders got clear when a crash caused chaos at around the halfway point, with these riders staying clear to fight out the spoils at the finish. The cross winds that hit the 4hrs 30mins of racing meant when the lead group got organised it was impossible for anybody caught behind to get back on terms.
A number of nations were badly caught out when the race split, including the GB team and unfortunately Ireland, who had no members in the escape.
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To compound matters for the Irish team, both Aaron Buggle and Jack Wilson got caught up in the crash that caused the split, forcing them into a very long chase to get back on to the main field. Wilson suffered a broken wheel in the crash.
The duo spent 40km riding hard to get back on and finally rejoined the main group despite the high pace as the bunch tried to chase down the breakaway.
However, Buggle later punctured and Wilson broke a spoke, forcing him to get another wheel change. Neither rider was able to make it back after their second mechanicals as the pace ramped up inside the last hour of racing. And while both kept going, they were among a group of riders who were not allowed by the race organisers to go onto the finishing circuits to complete the closing laps.
Wilson told stickybottle he was surprised he and Buggle managed to get back on.
“I was then sitting nicely in the bunch, there were a few really tough bits with the cross wind and after chasing for so long my legs were in bits,” he said.
“I suffered on and when the hammer really went down about 40km from home I was in the main bunch at that point, behind a Russian who decided to sit up. So I got up to sprint around him to get on the back of the group and bang, a broken spoke. That was it for me; I waited for two or three minutes for a wheel and just rode to the finish in a group of lads with three of the GB riders. I found out on the way to the finish after chasing back on that Aaron got another flat so had to chase all over again cooking his legs so me and him came in together.”
Sean Downey was also unable to finish, having been hampered again by the pain in his fractured arm that had forced him out of the Nations Cup La Cote Picarde race in France last week.
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With Conor Dunne having come down with food poisoning in France last week, he was forced out of that race and had not recovered enough to take to the line at the ZLM Tour on Saturday.
That left just Sam Bennett and Felix English as the only two Irish finishers in Holland. Bennett managed to get out of what was left of the peloton and finished in a chasing group in 32nd place just over four minutes down. English was in a group a further two minutes back and finished 51st.
With the team failing to score any points in the French or Dutch races and with no more Nations Cup racing planned for them this year, qualifying a team for the U23 World Championships in Valkenburg in Holland in September is beginning to look like a tough challenge. The team can still qualify if the riders score enough UCI points in other races to bring Ireland into the qualification slots.
Cycling Ireland is hoping to enter the U23 riders into some other UCI races in the months ahead in a bid to build that points tally.
Manager Ryan Connor with Bennett & English before the start (Photo: Rik Masil/The Belgian Project)
With the cross winds whipping into the flatlands from the sea, if you weren’t in this group it was lights out (Photo: Rik Masil/The Belgian Project)
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