Left to right; Matt Brammeier, Dan Martin and Sam Bennett out training on the course in Florence yesterday, Saturday. The weather changed today and the Irish had no luck at all (Photo: Brendan Slattery)
The Irish challenge in the elite men’s World Road Championships in Florence, Italy, ended this afternoon as the action was just beginning to unfold.
With the riders pounded by torrential rain before the temperature dropped and thunder and lightning began, the race split very significantly first time up the climbs, with the pace of the Italians, the weather and crashes seeing half of the 208 rider field abandon before four laps of 10 were even completed.
The four-man team of Dan Martin, Nicolas Roche, Sam Bennett and Matt Brammeier were all present and correct in the peloton as the riders entered the finishing circuit in Florence after racing 106km from Lucca.
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The Irish riders looked comfortable and could be seen in the first portion of the bunch as the race tackled the two climbs on the circuit for the first time.
However, on the second passage Roche crashed on the descent of the second climb and the next time around Martin crashed on almost the same spot on the circuit.
Bennett had a crash incident just before Roche; losing spokes in his front wheel and being forced to wait for a change.
When Roche crashed, Brammeier waited for him in the hope of helping him back to the bunch, but that was to prove fruitless and they soon joined Bennett in a small group off the back.
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At the end of lap 2, Roche passed through the start-finish area along with Bennett and Brammeier some 6:40 down on the breakaway and 2:44 down on what was an already much depleted peloton.
All three were not racing when they passed through the start-finish area and it appeared they knew their race was over and were riding around to the pits area to abandon and change into dry clothes.
Official confirmation they had abandoned came not long after they had completed the second lap and ridden through the start-finish area. That left Dan Martin as Ireland’s sole representative in the race, all alone in the small bunch chasing a five-man early breakaway.
When the bunch passed through the start-finish to complete two laps, Martin looked very comfortable.
However, around the same time his three team mates were confirmed as out, Martin took a spill on the same section of the course where Roche had fallen a lap earlier.
He remounted as quickly as he could and by the end of lap 3 he was riding alone off the back of four or five large groups on the road; having conceded 2:48 to the bunch that he had crashed from.
All looked lost for him until reports filtered through that he was continuing to ride and had closed the gap to the group he had been in by around one minute.
However, by the time he had completed lap 4 of the 16.6km circuit – with six to go – far from staging any comeback, Martin had conceded the guts of an additional minute and the urgency seemed to have gone out of his riding.
His abandoning the race was confirmed not long after he had completed four laps.
It’s a very disappointing day for Ireland. As ever, we’ll have shed loads of reaction later.
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