Damien Shaw powers to Tour of Ards win with long-range solo move

Damien Shaw leads the breakaway he was to later take flight from to win the Tour of Ards out front on his own (Photo: Marian Lamb - Cycling Ulster)

Having romped to victory in his first race of the season at the Cycleways Cup in Navan two weeks ago, Damien Shaw has since been in Majorca for a training camp with the national paracycling track team.

But his absence from the roads training and racing in favour of getting his track legs back on has done little to dent his road form if his ride at the Tour of Ards today is anything to go by.

At the finish on what was a cold and breezy day for racing, the Mullingar fireman riding for Team ASEA had a massive 2½ minutes to spare on the breakaway of the day.

The bunch was another minute back; with the sprint from it for 7th place won by fastman Brian Stewart (Phoenix CC).

The breakaway that Shaw took flight from was made up of some very strong men (Photo with thanks to The Belgian Project)

Shaw attacked around 25km into the 105km race which started and finished on Newtownards.

He initially put the hurt down around the same spot on the course where last year’s winning move went clear; on that occasion leading to a win by Fraser Duncan, who is now a team mate of Shaw’s.

After pulling clear a little on his own, Shaw was quickly caught by a group of a half dozen riders including the in-form David Watson (North Down CC), promising teenager Craig McAuley (Roe Valley), Mark Mc Kinley (Newry Wheelers), Sean Featherstone (Newry Wheelers), winner last weekend Craig Rea (Phoenix CC) and Ali Macaulay (Team Asea).

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While the group worked well together, the bunch began closing on the tailwind sections.

There was only one train leaving the station today and if you missed it, you were stranded (Photo with thanks to The Belgian Project)

Active off the front of that bunch were, among others, Sean McIntyre (Orchard CC), Angus Fyffe (Omagh Wheelers) and Glenn Kinning of (Kinning Cycles).

Shaw’s team mate Roger Aiken made a few efforts to get clear and across to the leaders on his own but failed in his endeavours.

However, Kinning and the in-form David Hamilton of North Down CC did manage to break clear but had left it too late to bridge across and were eventually swallowed up by the bunch.

Up ahead, and perhaps sensing the bunch would catch the breakaway, Shaw jumped the others with some 35km remaining.

And just as he had done on a freezing cold day in Navan a fortnight ago, he soloed his way to victory.

The escape group he took flight from survived to take the minor placings, with Watson getting the sprint for 2nd ahead of young McAuley in 3rd.