Alistair Macauley has plenty of time to savour his Gorey Three Day stage win today (Photo: http://www.
Alastair Macauley (Phoenix CC) has won a fantastic opening stage at the Gorey Three Day today after a fantastic day’s racing that the event is famous for. The winner took a solo victory after getting clear of a large breakaway on the final KOH of the day.
A group of eight riders got away early in the stage and opened a very good gap on the main field, with speeds regularly up to 60km per hour.
In that group was: Patrick Dobbs (Slaney CC), Michael McBride (Errigal CC), Liam Blanchfield (Bray Wheelers), Sean McKenna (Orwell Wheelers), Martin Gill (Wexford Wheelers), Thomas Fallon & Mark Downey (both Nicolas Roche Performance Team but riding for Team Ireland).
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Fallon rode very strongly in taking the KOH primes and he has the lead in that competition. Around 5km before the breakaway got onto the 25km finishing circuit a group of 12 got clear of the bunch and joined the eight-man breakaway, making 20 up front.
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At that point, with 30km remaining, the bunch was around 40 seconds down on the lead group of 20.
One of the riders to bridge across to the early leaders, Alastair Macauley (Phoenix CC) broke clear on his own going over the final KOH. He forged ahead very strongly to build a lead of 1:45 on the chasers as the large group stalled and Macauley absolutely ploughed on with the stage win and yellow jersey in his sights.
With around 15kms remaining the main bunch was only around 40 seconds down on the large chase group and 2:20 down on the flying Macauley out front on his own.
He hung on to take the solo win. The group behind split in two, with the first half coming in behind the winner, then the second half, and then the bunch.
More later.
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