Irish U23 riders Darren Rafferty (Hagens Berman Axeon) and Kevin McCambridge (Trinity Racing) have both put in strong performances in Italy in Giro del Belvedere (1.2U).
The very hilly 171km race, featuring many of the best U23 teams in the world, saw Rafferty return to form with a top five result after suffering some injury issues in the first weeks of the season.
McCambridge also put in a very strong ride out front in a breakaway - and then on his own - for more than half of the race, which started and finished in Villa di Villa in the Veneto region of north eastern Italy.
The riders faced seven laps of a small circuit, with a climb each time, before moving to another circuit - again with a climb - for three laps. They eventually moved onto a third loop, for two laps, with a 1.5km climb averaging 11.4 per cent gradient. In the final they descended off the climb before a short flat run in to the line.
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McCambridge attacked just before the 20km marker with Italian rider Lorenzo Farinati (Solme-Olmo). They worked well together and stretched out their advantage to over two minutes on the chasing peloton, with Jumbo Visma Development stepping up to set the pace in the bunch.
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However, just before the 50km marker, Farinati crashed, leaving McCambridge out front alone; the Irishman tackling the repeated climbs very well and building his gap to about five minutes at one point. He collected all of the intermediate sprints of the day and was only caught by the remains of the peloton with about 50km remaining, making for a near 100km attack.
When he was caught, a new breakaway featuring five riders went clear - Bryan Olivo (Cycling Team Friuli ASD), Floris Van Tricht (EFC-L&R-Van Mossel), Loe Van Belle (Jumbo-Visma Development), Federico Lacomoni (Sias Rime) and Finlay Pickering (Trinity Racing).
They worked well together and by the time they reached the 30km to go marker, entering the final circuit with the most challenging climb for two laps, they had almost 2:30 on what remained of the peloton.
However, on those two finishing circuits Rafferty emerged in a select group of about a dozen riders that caught the five breakaway men, dropping all but two of them. Jumbo Visma Development had four riders in the front group and used their numbers wisely to attack. The team's Norwegian rider, Johannes Staune-Mittet, jumped in the finale and rode solo to win. He crossed the line 10 seconds up on the 12-man chasing group.
Davide De Pretto (Zalf Euromobil Désirée Fior), the Italian who was 3rd in the U23 road race at the Europeans last year, took the sprint for 2nd place from Van Belle and Tijmen Graat, both of Jumbo Visma Development, with Rafferty next in 5th place.
As the race finished on a circuit, many of the riders were prevented from going out onto the penultimate or final lap, with McCambridge among the non-finishers after his breakaway heroics earlier in the day.
