Irish juniors Rafferty, O'Connor go the distance at Flanders Worlds | Video

Darren Rafferty and Ronan O'Connor have both gone the distance in the junior men's road race at the World Road Championships. Rafferty has once again impressed, as he finished in the reduced peloton sprinting for the bronze medal.

That group was whittled down to just 28 riders after eight laps of an undulating circuit in Leuven; the junior men's race some 121.4km and taking 2¾ hours.

Rafferty eventually finished in 24th place, in the group 24 seconds down on new junior world champion Per Strand Hagenes. The 18-year-old from Norway claimed the gold medal with a very strong solo attack on the last lap.

Rafferty finished 19 seconds ahead of Romain Grégoire of France. The sprint from Rafferty's group for the bronze medal, just five seconds down on the Frenchman, was won by Madis Mihkels of Estonia.

The gold and silver winners today also took gold and silver in the Europeans junior road race two weeks ago, though on that occasion Grégoire took gold and Strand Hagenes claimed the silver.

Today, Strand Hagenes was active from the start and could be seen getting involved in the early moves. Darren Rafferty was also present close to the front for long periods – repeating his impressive performance at the Europeans.

Eventual winner Hagenes bridged across to a seven-rider group late in the race and on the penultimate climb he attacked hard, with just under 6km to.

While there was a crash in the group behind him just as he jumped hard, even the riders on his wheel were unable to hold him and he powered his way to solo victory.

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Aside from Rafferty - who is from Co Tyrone and has come up the ranks through Island Wheelers - Irish junior road race champion Ronan O'Connor was the only other finisher for Ireland in today's junior men's road race.

O'Connor, who rides for Orwell Wheelers, got caught behind some crashes early in the race and he never got back on to the peloton. However, he persisted with his effort and made sure he finished; placing 66^th in a large group at 8:26.

Con Scully, who riders for Carlow RCC on the home scene, was also representing Ireland today but the first-year junior suffered a crash and he was a non-finisher.

And VC Glendale teenager Dean Harvey, who has been so impressive at the home scene this year, was also a non-finisher, though only after working hard to help position Rafferty into the second half of the race.

Lots more to come.