Eddie Dunbar was constantly off the front during the U23 road race at the European Championships, once again underlining his ability at this level (Photo: Sean Rowe)
By Brian Canty
Eddie Dunbar was best of the Irish in today’s U23 men’s road race at the European Championships in Tartu, Estonia.
The 18 year-old Corkman finished 26th, in the same time as winner Erik Baska of Slovakia.
Dunbar was one of the stars of the 161–kilometre race, constantly going on the attack and proving a real menace throughout.
He was in a number of groups that managed to escape off the front and though all were subsequently reeled in, it was further proof of his ability at this level.
He rode the race today in a four-man Irish team along with Ryan Mullen, Daniel Stewart and Sean McKenna, with the 154 rider field racing for 16 laps of a tough circuit.
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Dunbar managed to escape after 60 kilometres with Polish rider Wojciech Sykala and they worked well to pull out a gap of around 40 seconds.
They were joined by two more but a high pace back in the field meant they were quickly reabsorbed.
As soon as he was back in the bunch, a crash forced a split and on the wrong side of it were McKenna and Dunbar, though both managed to regain contact with the main field.
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Daniel Turek of the Czech Republic made a determined bid to get up the road and though he was by himself out front, he still managed to chisel out a lead of around 1.30.
He will have been relieved to hear a chase group was going across to him around the 50k to-go mark and in there was the irrepressible Dunbar.
With the Irishman were Patryk Stosz (Poland), Laurens De Plus (Belgium), Michal Schlegel (Czech Republic) and Raman Ramanau (Belarus).
That five made it across to lone leader Turek but he would become distanced.
Ramanau would drop off also to leave it four up front and with 30k to go it was still the quartet leading, with Dunbar doing much of the driving.
With 20k remaining the margin was still around the half-minute mark.
But with so many strong nations absent the escape was eventually reeled in, much to Dunbar’s disgust as with a stronger group he could have perhaps stayed away.
Ryan Mullen and Daniel Stewart were still in the bunch but Sean McKenna never managed to regain contact after getting caught out by another split.
Credit to Dunbar for sticking in there in the final where he was seen helping Mullen but the high pace meant nothing was getting away late on.
In the end, it came to a sprint with Erik Baska (Slovakia) taking the win from Mamyr Stash (Russia) and Kenneth Van Rooy (Belgium).
Dunbar was 26th and Mullen 41st – both in the bunch sprinting for the gold medal. Daniel Stewart finished 57th at 2:02 while McKenna was 79th at 7:11.
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