Mark Downey celebrates his overall win in Donegal at the finish yesterday on top of the Glengesh climb (Photo: Eymard Brennan Photography)
Mark Downey may have started his season a little more slowly than expected after his move from Banbridge CC to the Nicolas Roche Performance Team-Standard Life in the off season, but two very good wins over the last two weekends underlines the fact that he is coming into top form for the meaty part of the season.
Riding this weekend for a Cycling Ulster selection, the first-year junior performed very strongly in Rás Dhún na nGall but perhaps more significantly he grabbed the yellow jersey and then defended it with the coolness and smarts that has marked him out as a talent to watch closely in the next few seasons.
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On the concluding stage of the race yesterday, which finished atop the feared Glengesh climb, Downey was never really in danger of losing the race even though a very strong breakaway got up the road early and pulled out two minutes on the bunch.
But while Downey, winner of the West Down GP last weekend, and the man he took yellow from Gavin Noble (Lakelands) bridged across to that escape and went head-to-head up the final climb to decide the overall win, Brian McArdle of Orwell Wheelers put in a stage-long storming ride.
When the slopes were at their steepest and everyone’s legs were stinging at the end of four stages in three days, it was McArdle who proved by far the strongest to absolutely dominated the closing stages of one of the very small number of summit finishes on the domestic calendar.
The south Dublin man did it the hard way, going clear in the early chase group but still having the firepower to see off the fresher legs that made it across before the riders hit Glengesh.
In the end, McArdle had a very comfortable winning margin of 11 seconds and the fact the two strongest men in the race – Downey and Noble – were 2nd and 3rd behind him on the stage added to the quality of his win.
Downey took a lead of just three seconds overall on Olympic triathlete Noble into the final stage yesterday, and with such a difficult finish in store it was clear the yellow jersey would not be able to relax for even one moment on the road.
The race started at a fast pace with plenty of attacking, but it wasn’t until four men pulled cleared and had built a gap of 1 minute with just over an hour of racing done that the stage settled into a pattern.
In that early move were Marcel Kock (Dave McCall Foundation-Belgian Project), Patrick O’Brien (Orwell Wheelers), Barrick Parker (UCD CC) and Mike Miller (Phoenix CC).
A chase group formed behind them that included Sean McKenna (UCD CC), Cormac Keeney (Errigal CC) and eventual stage winner McArdle.
Despite applying themselves very well to the chase, the group did not catch the breakaway and when the gap between the leaders and the bunch grew to two minutes, the minds of the GC contenders still in that bunch became focused.
At that stage Kock was the best placed of the breakaway and so he was leader on the road.
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A six-man group managed to get out of the bunch and it contained first and second overall, Downey and Noble. These caught the three chasers ahead, swelling the group to nine, which then closed in on the breakaway up the road before the climb started.
As expected, once the large escape hit the slopes it began to split immediately, with McArdle, Downey and Noble clearly looking the most able at that point.
Downey was more intent on keeping a close eye on Noble and protecting his slender lead overall than going for the stage. That’s not to diminish McArdle’s fantastic stage-winning effort, which gave him a lead over well over 20 seconds on that strong pair as the crowds began to thicken reaching the finish.
In the end McArdle took his time to celebrate and he still had 11 seconds to spare on the flying Downey, who put a very hard kick in to distance Noble just before the finish and succeeded in putting 13 seconds into him, to stretch his final winning margin to 16 seconds.
Noble, riding the race because a running-related injury has prevented him from racing triathlon of late, hung on for third on the stage.
Breakaway men Mike Millar (Phoenix CC), Barrick Parker (UCD CC), Cormac Keeney (Errigal CC) were 4th, 5th and 6th on the stage.
There were then some interesting placings after them, with emerging U23 rider and stage 2 TT winner Andrew Stanley (DUCC) taking 7th and indicating that he is a rider to watch. Stage 1 winner Danny Bruton, who will represent Ireland at the Junior European Championships later this month, was 8th and just one place behind him was Matthew Taggart.
The latter, along with Downey and Craig McAuley (Cycling Ulster), is among the very best young talents in the North.
Taggart left Banbridge CC over the winter with Downey for NRPT-Standard Life but he has been hit with some bad luck and health issues this season.
However, his ride in Donegal – especially up a long hard climb like Glengesh and after four stages – reveals he is finding his feet again and is looking like he’ll make his mark before the summer is out.
McAuley won stage 3 in Donegal and he also won the climbers’ classification, adding weight to the theory that the Ulster conveyor belt for young talent is in rude health. He bridged to the breakaway on his own on stage 3, before distancing them close to the finish to take the stage ahead of Des Woods (Newry).
And behind them, Downey jumped the bunch with 5km remaining and when yellow jersey Noble let a gap open in the bunch on the drag to the finish that gave Downey the time he needed to move into yellow for yesterday’s final stage.
He and McAuley helped the Cycling Ulster team, sponsored by Slane Cycles, to the team prize in Donegal this weekend.
Manager Ryan Connor said the race, promoted by Four Masters CC, represented a great opportunity for emerging riders to show what they can do.
“I’m delighted with the team’s success,” he said of his own charges in Cycling Ulster-Slane Cycles.
“They were a great group of young riders to work with and did what I told them to do. They were fully committed to working as a team.”
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