Ben Healy is Irish cycling’s new elite road race champion after a dominant performance in Co Limerick today when he got clear early never took his foot of the gas for the near 160km race.
Though having just recently turned 20 years old, Healy is
very much Irish cycling’s young up and coming star; some big wins on the
international scene now followed by his first elite title.
The Trinity Racing rider collected the elite and U23 gold
medals for his efforts today and last Thursday won the U23 TT title.
Healy has already won a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir – last year becoming the youngest rider ever to win a stage on the race they call the U23 Tour de France – and just two weeks ago he took a brilliant win on the final stage of Ronde de l’Isard in the Pyrenees.
Advertisement
Today in Knockaderry, in a title race promoted by Newcastle West Wheelers under race director Liam Collins, Healy took victory in the same manner he has taken those big international wins; attacking riding.
He won the title today from Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb) with Darragh O'Mahony (Swift Carbon) stepping up from his U23 gold of last year to take elite bronze this time around.
While Healy claimed both the elite and U23 gold medals today, Kevin McCambridge - the very impressive 18-year-old - took U23 silver. The Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling rider adds his medal today to the U23 TT silver he took on Thursday.
Completing the U23 podium today was former junior TT champion Ben Walsh; the 21-year-old EvoPro Racing rider putting in a very strong performance for bronze.
Ben Healy made an aggressive start to the stage and got clear in a breakaway – of just two riders, with Darnell Moore of Caldwell Cycles Omagh for company – before attacking Moore with two laps of the 17km course remaining.
And once he was on his own with those two circuits
remaining, he put his head down and went into TT for the remainder of the race
to win by well over a minute for his nearest challengers.
That description of his victory perhaps makes it sound
easier than it was in reality as Healy had some fantastic riders hunting him
down for the majority of the race.
With nine laps of a 17.1km course to negotiate, and the
last 3km of the lap uphill, the aggression began early, as it always done as
the Irish championships.
By the second lap of nine Healy had forged clear with Moore; the latter the U23 champion from two years ago when he also took silver in the elite contest behind Conor Dunne, then of Aqua Blue Sport.
Related News
The two leaders settled into a good rhythm up front and
while their gap was modest initially it was soon close to one minute.
A chase group soon formed behind them which feature the
new elite TT champion Conn McDunphy (CC Nogent Oise) and the form rider of the
domestic season Daire Feeley (Strata 3-VeloRevolution).
They were joined by former junior TT champion Ben Walsh
(EvoPro Racing), former two-time Irish road and TT champion Nicolas Roche (Team
Sunweb) and decorated road and track international Mark Downey (Cotes D’Armor
Cyclisme).
That chase group held the two leaders to within less than
a minute for the longest time, with the peloton about 40 seconds further
behind.
However, the pressure being applied by Moore and Healy up
front meant the chasers were forced to ride hard in the pursuit, and that chase
group was soon whittled down to just three; Roche, McDunphy and Feeley.
With six laps completed and three remaining, the two leaders had a gap of about 1:15 over the chasers behind and the race was still far from over.
However, on the climb nearing the end of the seventh lap
Healy pressed on the pedals and managed to distance Moore, meaning he began the
penultimate lap leading solo.
Once Healy took flight solo the gap between him and
chasers began to extend and nudged up to around 1:40, though new riders were
arriving into the chase group having bridged across to it.
McDunphy, Roche, Feeley and Moore were joined by two
serious contenders, both in great form of late, in the shape of Darragh O’Mahony
(Swift Carbon) and Kevin McCambridge, the Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling
18-year-old who record the second fastest time in Thursday’s TT.
Just after the penultimate lap began Healy had a gap of
1:40 over the chasers with the remains of the peloton at 2:40.
However, just before the last lap began the gap between Healy and the chasers were close to two minutes, at which point Roche attacked from the chasing group and went after Healy and O'Mahony also attacked the chasing group to go solo, third rider on the road.
Seasoned WorldTour rider Roche, who has just finished the Tour de France, put his head down and it looked like he was making gains on Healy.
However, he had left himself with too much to do and
Healy proved strong enough to hold on; taking the title on his own from Roche,
who was collecting his second silver medal of the championships after also
taking silver in the elite TT on Thursday.
More to come.
Topics
