Darren Rafferty, one of Ireland's most exciting young riders, will wear the elite men's national road race champion's jersey for the next 12 months in Europe after a fantastic display yesterday in Limerick which saw him take the title for 2024.
The 20-year-old, who was U23 TT champion last year and 2nd in the U23 road race, has made a huge step up this year in his neo pro season with World Tour team EF Education-EasyPost.
And yesterday's victory represented a seamless extension of that progress; getting clear in a breakaway and then distancing Dillon Corkery (St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93) in the final after he suffered cramp.
For Rafferty, taking the Irish champion's jersey represents another big step in his career, in which the progress has already been rapid. And he said he was over the moon to take the title and really looking forward to wearing the champion's kit for the next 12 months.
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"It's pretty incredible I think, I had my expectations pretty low after Thursday's disappointing TT. I kinda wanted to redeem myself a bit but I didn't really think I had the legs or the fitness to get a good result.
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"So I just came in with pretty low expectations and I thought I'd see how it plays out, with strong riders in the field.
"I thought it was (Rory) Townsend's and Eddie's (Dunbar) to lose so I kinda leaned on them a bit. And it was nice racing again for the first time with by brother, he got into first attack with Eddie," he said of brother Adam (Hagens Berman Jayco) getting clear in a small group that would begin the formation of the breakaway after just over an hour of racing.
"I tried to sort of let that group of four get a bit of a gap, try to get him ahead, and then a group of five of us jumped across and we had a strong group of nine and that was the breakaway for the day.
"And once we got onto the local laps, the final climb was a lot harder, the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th time. And I just really dug in and pushed to the line and luckily I held on."
"I think with one or two laps to go I was start to think a little bit (of winning) with just me out front. I knew I just needed to keep pushing. And it was so nice to do it here with so many people from Island Wheelers, my home club, here.
"And to keep it with EF for another year is something that's very nice for the team and for myself. It's going to be another nice one, hopefully I'll get some good races in the jersey and try and do it proud. It should be a good 12 months, I'll cherish it."
