Seth Dunwoody, like Darren Rafferty in recent weeks, has said the fact Giro d'Italia 2014 started close to his home during the Irish 'grande partenza' had inspired him towards pursuing a career in cycling, specifically one day riding the Giro.
He looked back, to the year when he was aged just 8-years-old witnessing the race, on a day when he claimed his first stage win at Giro Next Gen, the U23 version of the Italian Grand Tour.
The 19-year-old from Hamiltonbawn in Co Armagh got clear in the nine-man breakaway today and monstered it in the sprint when they went to the finish. It wasn't his first UCI-ranked win, indeed not even the first of the season. But in his debut year in the U23 ranks, it was his biggest day on a bike so far.
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"Today was such a fun day on the bike. I loved every kilometre," he said. "My legs started to get tired in the last 3km. But, that close to the victory, I had to keep pushing through. And I knew I had the legs to win the sprint."
Dunwoody continued: "The plan of the team was firstly to get Jakob (Omrzel), our GC man, safely to the line but he said himself this morning he’d like to see me in the breakaway. I’m grateful for the belief the team had in me today. The strength was there.
"The only worry I had was on the climb when they attacked. I had the fear of getting dropped. I just (stayed) in the group I was in, thinking that I’d give my best at the end."
Dunwoody said when the 2014 Giro started just 5km from his home in Armagh, and where he went to school, it was a big time in his life, especially lighting the fire towards pursuing cycling as his sport.
“I don’t remember much," he said of the specifics of the day, "just that I asked Ben Swift for a photo, and Marcel Kittel, one of my favourite riders, won the stage. He had a riding style not too different from mine when he was younger.
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“I got my first road bike when I was 12, but honestly, I never thought I’d make it to this level. Then came the Froome and Geraint Thomas era. I watched them on TV and it fired me up. That’s when I decided to really commit, dreaming of racing the Giro and the Tour one day.”
Today, Dunwoody was part of a large breakaway group that got across to the two men who had initially struck out on the 134km stage 4 to Salsomaggiore Terme; Lorenzo Masciarelli (MBH Bank Ballan CSB) and Pierre-Henry Basset (XDS Astana Development Team).
When Dunwoody's seven-man group got across, making for nine up front, the breakaway had 1:30 with 40km to go. That was just as they began the 8.2km Valico di Sant'Antonio climb. That ascent was crested with just over 30km to go and when Dunwoody got over that with the leaders, it was very much a question of 'game on'.
Their group made it to the finish some 59 seconds clear of the bunch, with the leaders sprinting it out for stage honours. That gallop opened a long way from the line, with the Irish rider prevailing.
He saw off runner-up Patrick Boje Frydkjær (Lidl-Trek Future Racing) of Denmark and 3rd placed Aubin Sparfel (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Development Team), one of France’s big talents in the U23 ranks.
“I didn’t achieve what I wanted in the time trial and on stage 1," Dunwoody said today, having told stickybottle on the eve of the race he felt he could be in contention on those two opening days. "But I knew, whenever the route was released a few weeks ago, I said to my team 'stage 4 is mine'.
"I’ve had this stage kind of in my head for a long time in the sense that I could go up the road early or I could try and survive for a bunch sprint. The whole team and the staff backed me this morning. They gave me confidence.
"We were trying our best to make the breakaway early. The word of the week for our team is 'patience'. Today I just had it. Thankfully I could stay cool in the warm weather. I knew there would be sort of attacks in the last 2km.
"I also knew that I had the legs to win. This second win this year means a lot, it’s an even bigger surprise to win here than my first time this year. It’s amazing”.
