Dillon Corkery (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93) took his best result of the season in France yesterday but told stickybottle he felt a good chance slipped through his grasp after a lot of work by his team through the near 200km Grand Prix de Lillers.
The Irish rider, who won Rás Tailteann two years ago, said his team had split the race in the crosswinds with Wanty-Nippo-ReUz with about 60km remaining. And though that later put him in a great position, as he fought at the front deep into the final kilometre his effort went awry.
"It was hectic, absolutely hectic," he said of the race, won by new British up and comer Matthew Brennan (Visma Lease a Bike Development). "With about 400 metres to go there was a roundabout and one lad came up the inside of me and one up the outside.
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"They kind of sandwiched me. I got boxed in and I went to push through the two of them; stuck out my elbows and went to push through them. But I must have rode into some sort of hole or something.
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"I lost my chain just before the sprint and then I tried to get it back on but it was way too late," he said of finishing in 8th place from a reduced bunch of 70 riders.
"I would have loved to have been on the podium, at least then the day would have been worth it after the work the boys had done for me. But Just wasn't to be. It was a shame and I'm disappointed because I think I can win races like that.
"I think would have been very hard to beat Brennan on the day, he's clearly a very strong rider, and the young talent, so chapeau to him all the same. But I would have loved to have had a whack off it because at the end of the day I didn't even get to do a thousand watts in this sprint, I didn't get to sprint."
Corkery said the race was so full-on in the early stages he did not think it could come down to a sprint. However, his team managed to calm the action for a time, before then splitting it in the crosswinds. And when a crash occurred at that point, a front group rode away, with Corkery in it with his team mates.
