Danny Bruton has excelled in very difficult conditions and after 2,000 metres of climbing against a really strong field in Poland (Photo: www.blackumbrella.ie)
By Brian Canty
Ireland's Danny Bruton has recorded arguably the best result of his career with a superb ninth place finish in the World University Championships in southern Poland this afternoon.
In truly awful weather and on a very testing circuit, the former Irish junior international took a top 10 result against far more experienced opposition, some of whom are riding with feeder teams for professional outfits.
Winner of the race was Petr Vakoc of the Czech Republic who blitzed the field to win with over a minute to spare.
Vakoc made it a couple of days to remember when he also won the time-trial yesterday, blasting around the 23 kilometre course in just 33 minutes 30.98 seconds. Ireland's representative, Ian Richardson of UCD CC was 12th in the test.
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There were 15 nations represented in the road race today, but there was a very strong field of over 50 riders.
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The Irish team of Bruton, Alastair MacAuley, Sean McKenna and Marc Potts rode aggressively but the climb on every lap, which took around 12 minutes to crest, really took its toll as the peloton became depleted.
"I cannot stress enough how fantastic a ride Danny did today," said team manager Ronan McLaughlin afterwards.
"There was nearly 2,000m of climbing and it was pissing rain all day today. The climb took around 12minutes every time and there aren't many races in Ireland where a guy will be climbing for that long.
“Every rider in the top 10 is riding with a Continental team - at the very least. The winner rides for Omega Pharma-QuickStep so that gives you an idea of what the field was like."
The race was shortened from 108 kilometres to 94 kilometres today because of the difficulty of the circuit, the different level of rider and the weather being so bad.
The Irish team returns home tomorrow.
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