Conor Dunne (leading) is on the move to a bigger team next year and is looking forward to challenging for Nations Cup results on U23 Irish teams and qualifying for the World Road Championships (Photo: Lydia Van de Meerssche)
By Brian Canty
Conor Dunne brought the curtain down on his 2013 season yesterday, Sunday, with a very solid ride in the Paris Tour espoirs where he made a number of selections throughout, but not the race-winning move.
Dunne, riding for the VL Technics–Abutriek team he has been with for the last three years, finished 111th, just over two minutes down on the winner. But he was pleased with his day’s work.
“We were away for 140km and it looked quite promising because we had two minutes on the bunch,” he explained.
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“But we were joined by another group, to make it 44 riders ahead and there were a lot of attacks from that."
“It was hard to pick the right attack, but 10 guys got away. I tried to chase but never got back with them, then two attacked from that and stayed away. I gave it a good crack though, so I’m pleased enough.”
Now aged 22 years, Dunne has had something of a breakthrough season, riding as team leader of the Irish team at the U23 Nations Cups, winning a stage of the An Post Rás and wearing the yellow jersey. He has also performed consistently throughout the season in Belgium, taking a number of results on the kermesse scene.
But the undoubted highlight, he said, was that glorious May day into Longford.
“Definitely winning the stage of the Rás was the moment for me of 2013. That was pretty special. I felt I really wanted to get a win in front of quite a lot of people who supported me. I always thought I could do it and once I saw the time gap inside 5km, I knew it was between me and the other guy. I was feeling really good and really confident.”
Dunne revealed the inspiration for that win was his long-time coach and mentor Gavin Atkins, who was very seriously injured 12 months ago when he was knocked off his bike by a door from an oncoming lorry swinging open.
As well as Atkins, Cycling Ireland’s head coach Brian Nugent is a man Dunne said he owed a lot to.
Dunne, whose grandmother is from Mayo and grandfather from Offaly, grew up in Watford in west London and declared for Ireland three years ago. But his “home from home” for the last three years has been in Belgium.
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“I really like it here. This is my third season out here with the same team. I got a few results as a junior when I came out fist and got a few results, and it turned out to be a really good team to be on.”
“They’ve a really good programme so there was no need to change since I came. They’ve been really good to me and helped me develop quite a lot. I was the only foreign rider and I can’t speak the language very well so it says a lot that I have stayed put.”
That is likely to change though, as he has been heavily linked with a move to the An Post Chain Reaction team, a mooted transfer he was remaining tight-lipped about.
“I can say I’m changing teams," he said, declining to comment further.
"I’m really looking forward to the change, I’m ready for some new challenges now and I’m really excited about the future.”
“I was speaking to a few people and wanted to weigh up my options, I always wanted to stay in Belgium. That’s the best place for me to get better, it feels like the way to go.”
“I believe I can keep getting stronger over the next number of years. I’m going to give it everything to try and improve and I think I’ve a lot of room to develop and I’m going to keep on pushing to improve. I’m quite excited about next year. I will hopefully be able to say where that is soon.”
His year wasn’t all rosy though, and losing out to Marcus Christie and Ryan Mullen for selection for the World U23 Time Trial Championships was a low point, not that he’s dwelling on it.
“It was disappointing but I wasn’t crying about it,” he said.
“I knew what the deal was before going into that Port Talbot TT. I thought that was a fair selection criteria because me and Marcus were pretty close at the Nationals and he had done some good times. So I thought it was fair to let the best man go.”
“I was pretty happy with my ride in that selection race in the UK; I did my best power ever in my life so I can have no complaints and the best man won. Obviously it was disappointing to miss out on it though.”
He said one of his big goals next year is to wear the Irish jersey in as many races as he can.
“We’ve a really strong U23 team with Ryan (Mullen) and Jack (Wilson) and we’ll definitely be able to challenge in the Nations Cup. I think we should definitely try and qualify for the Worlds too. There’ll be a lot of us on UCI teams and doing more races, so we’ll be in a position to get the points to qualify some riders.”
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