"Guys weren't working in the break, so with 20km to go I just went for it and stayed clear"

Ciaran Kelly back with a bang today; taking victory in the Ned Flanagan Memorial after a 20km breakaway in the new colours of his own Bikeworx team (Photo: Amy Norah Farrell)

Gerard Cromwell

Returning to the domestic scene after eight years off the bike, Bikeworx rider Ciaran Kelly reminded everyone why he was regarded as one of the best junior riders in the world back in the early noughties by taking a dominant win in the Ned Flanagan Memorial A3 race in Kildare today.

Having tried to go clear on numerous occasions in the early kilometres, Kelly bided his time until the midpoint of the race with around 30km remaining to slip clear in a move.

“I couldn’t get away at the start,” he says.

“There was a lot of stop start racing, which was hard on the legs and a good few groups went away and came back in the early part of the race. But once we turned back towards Monasterevin, with about 30km to go, I got away with two others and then a few more came across and we had a group of about seven.”

Although this group held a 20 second advantage over the peloton turning out of a strong headwind, Kelly says some of the breakaway were not contributing to the workload.

“We had 20 seconds at that stage but there were a lot of lads missing turns, so going up a drag a few kilometres later one of the young lads in the group kicked on forward and I just jumped on his wheel.

“Then coming a while after that I put the hammer down coming into a corner, dropped him and kept going. I was about 20km on my own.”

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Having time trialled his way to the line, Kelly took a fine victory for his new Bikeworx team although he is not getting carried away just yet.

“I’ve done a good bit of training, without going bananas in the winter, so I was hoping to win today to be honest,” he said.

“But it’s a different ball game when you get up to A1 against the lads doing the big miles. We had Sean Reynolds and Alan Lynn in the race too and Geoff Sheehan and Stephen Halpin, who punctured, in the A1 race and it was great to get back into the swing of it again.

“I enjoyed going to the race with the Bikeworx lads, having the craic again. But I don’t know if I’ll race next weekend. I don’t want to be racing every week, so I might wait until Navan for the next one.”

Back in the day: Ciaran Kelly (seated) with Paidi O'Brien in the Irish house in Belgium in 2005; before both went on to be team mates on the Sean Kelly Team the following season. Kelly promptly packed it in and came home to Ireland and is only returning to racing proper this season.