Ben Walsh was best of the Irish in tonight's opening prologue of the Junior Tour of Ireland in Ennis (Photo: Eymard Brennan)
By Brian Canty
Matteo Jorgenson won tonight’s opening stage of the Scott Junior Tour of Ireland and he will wear the first yellow jersey of this year’s race into tomorrow’s second stage.
The Hot Tubes man had six seconds to spare on Ryan Coulton (Provision Junior Academy) in the 6.2-kilometre prologue.
Gage Hect, also of Hot Tubes, rounded out the podium a further two seconds back.
Related News
Best of the Irish was Ben Walsh, the NRPT-Magnet.ie man putting in a blistering time which was good enough for seventh place, 13 seconds behind the winner.
It’s been a difficult run-in to the race for the Philip Finnegan-managed squad as they were decimated by the loss of six riders.
Advertisement
Jake Gray and Cameron McIntyre were selected for the Irish team, Marc Heaney was picked for the Ulster selection, Tom Knight and Luke Smith are in Italy with the national track squad while Adam Stenson is out injured.
Ronan Tuomey, Robert O’Leary and Cameron McIntyre - all riding the race on the Irish national team - were the other Irish to finish in the top 10 in the race against the clock.
They’re all less than 24 seconds off the race lead so it’s all very much to play for, with one good breakaway capable of upending the general classification.
Tomorrow’s stage takes the riders on a 117-kilometre loop of east Clare, starting at noon from Ennis and heading towards Newmarket-on-Fergus, Sixmilebridge, Killaloe, Tuamgraney and Killanena before finishing in Barefield around 3pm.
Topics
