Gray and Meade storm to victory at Stephen Roche GP

The NRPT-Magnet.ie riders are turning into a great crop of emerging road men with the smarts and team work to match their engines. In the shot above, the team’s riders are on the front, keen to keep the pace up very early in a bid to stay away from the scratch men and set themselves up for victory (Photo with thanks to Dermot Cooney)

Junior rider Jake Gray has taken the main event at the Stephen Roche GP criterium, with reigning national road race champion Fiona Meade winning the women’s race.

Both profited from their aggression in their respective events on the Meadowmount housing estate in Ballinteer; the traditional final racing encounter before the National Championships.

Gray and his NRPT-Magnet.ie team were aggressive throughout but when Aquablue’s Brian Keane and Ronan Killeen (Lucan CRC) pulled away in the closing stages, it looked like they had the winning of the criterium in their grasp.

However, Gray rode like a professional with years more experience than a first-year junior; jumping from the group he was in on the last lap and blasting across to the two leaders.

He clearly held a little back on his way across and stalled to make the junction with just 100 metres remaining.

Wearing her pretty slick looking Irish champion's kit, Meade takes victory in front of a large crowd, with Piner just a few bike lengths behind (Photo: Dermot Cooney)

He then got the verdict in the sprint to the line from his two breakaway companions; Killeen a very strong rider who won the Gorey Three Day two years ago and Keane a former international cyclist turned triathlete.

Corkman Keane is now one of Ireland’s top triathletes and as one of the best we have ever produced in the sport should be at the Rio Olympics next year; his bid for London derailed by injury in 2012.

In the women’s event the star turn was reigning elite women’s national road race champion Fiona Meade; back from the US to try and retain her crown in Omagh on Saturday.

Riding in the colours of her Fearless Femme pro team, Meade showed the condition that she has built training full time and competing on the US scene this year when she stormed clear with Sarah Piner of DID Electrical Racing.

And with Meade a feared sprinter who has won stages of An Post Rás mBan from bunch gallops; she saw off Piner to emerge a comfortable winner in the end.

Her victory is a shot across the bow at those women who would try and take her title from her on Saturday.