Given his pedigree against the watch and form on the road this season, Conor Dunne would have expected a better result in the U23 European Time Trial Championships today, Friday.
Conor Dunne and Ryan Mullen have notched two below par results at the U23 European Time Trial Championships in the Czech Republic today, Friday, with both riders coming home further down the field than they would have expected.
Mullen, a silver medallist at these championships when a junior last year, was hampered by a mechanical issue when his chain slipped.
Dunne’s season has been interrupted by an elbow fracture just eight weeks ago, and given the progress he has made in the past 12 months today’s result was a disappointment for him.
Dunne came home in a time of 32mins 38secs over the 24km course, some 2:01 adrift of gold medal winner; the very aptly named Victor Campenaerts from Belgium. That time put the Belgium-based Irishman in 37th place of a 69-rider field.
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Mullen was 1:38 off the winner’s time and placed 22nd on the day.
The IG Sigma Sport first-year professional and first-year U23 rider has been in blistering form against the clock this year, proving one of the best testers in Great Britain where he is based and making a very strong transition to road racing at pro level.
He won two bronze medals at the U23 European Track Championships just last week, took the U23 National TT Championships in May and broke Martyn Irvine’s 4km pursuit stadium record at Sundrive Rd track in Dublin two weeks ago by 10 seconds.
The strength of the latter achievement is underlined by the fact that Irvine is a truly world class track professional, having won the elite world title in the scratch race at the World Championships this year and taken silver in the individual pursuit; both on the same afternoon. He is also a professional with the US-based Unitedhealthcare team which competes at Pro Continental level, one tier above Mullen’s team.
Against that backdrop of recent form, Mullen went into these championships – as he always will – with expectations of bagging a good result for Ireland; a medal always being a possibility and a top 10 even more so.
On the last climb on the course today his chain slipped, forcing him to delay and fix it before getting going again. Cycling Ireland said in a statement Mullen had closed the gap to the rider ahead of him by 15 seconds by the point of the course where he had the mechanical but by the finish that rider was 15 seconds ahead.
While a crude measurement that does not take into account riders starting and finishing often much faster than each other, it suggests his mechanical cost him 30 seconds.
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Because he had gained on the rider ahead of him to that point, he most likely continued to gain on him to the finish after his mechanical, meaning the real loss was perhaps a handful of seconds greater than the 30 suggested in the split.
Mullen was just 33 seconds off 12th place and 42 seconds off 10th, meaning he would have gone very close to the top 10 and maybe even sneaked into it if he had not suffered the time loss and the residual disruption to his physical rhythm and mental focus that goes with any problem, however minor, in a time trial.
Manager of the Ireland team, Kurt Bogaerts said Mullen did as well as could be expected in the circumstances.
“Ryan was unfortunate with his problem in the race. He lost a bit of time and then came back. It is hard to expect a big performance after getting two medals on the track last week. It was a short time to change from doing a short hard effort to an endurance event. But he got the maximum out of it. If he can do this now, then for the worlds there is huge progress to make.”
Dunne rode these championships last year and finished in 47th place. He won the opening stage in the An Post Rás this year and took the first yellow jersey. He also took a silver medal – behind Mullen – in the U23 National TT Championships last month.
And while he won that title last year, his display in the Rás before being forced out after crashing and fracturing his elbow, not to mention his clearly better form generally racing on the Continent this year, suggests he is a much better athlete in 2013 compared to last year.
He is fancied by most observers to secure a place with the An Post-Chainreaction team for next year and would have expected to have done better today. The disruption caused by his Rás crash has perhaps put a hole in his racing and training that he paid for a little today, when a top 20 place would have been expected given his pedigree against the watch.
Next up for the Irish at these championships is the junior road title race tomorrow, Saturday. The three-man team for that is recent Junior Tour of Ireland winner Eddie Dunbar along with Danny Bruton and Ciaran Campbell.
Bruton and Campbell have won three senior races each so far this season and should offer strong support for team leader Dunbar. Bruton has done very well to get these championships, having displayed fantastic mental and physical fortitude after bouncing back from breaking his collarbone just six weeks ago.
The U23 men’s team is in action on Sunday in the road race, with the team consisting of Mullen, Dunne, Jack Wilson and Stephen Clancy.
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