Eddie Dunbar and Matt Teggart (above) were two of the fallers for Ireland at the Tour de l'Avenir. Mark Downey also crashed and Daire Feeley was held up by the late crash that took down Dunbar (Photo: Morgane Bezzanier)
Four of six-man Irish team hit by crashes at Tour de l'Avenir
The Irish U23 team has endured a challenging stage 5 at the Tour de l’Avenir, with crashes affecting four of the riders.
Matt Teggart, Mark Downey and Eddie Dunbar were among the fallers, in two separate incidents.
And Daire Feeley was help up in the same late crash that took down team mate Dunbar.
Thankfully the incident involving Feeley and Dunbar occurred just inside the final 3km and the riders were credited with the same time as the bunch.
Slightly earlier on the stage, just inside the final 20km, Teggart and Downey were among a large number of riders who fell.
Advertisement
Downey managed to get back on, with Teggart very nearly making it and losing 39 seconds.
After his chase back on Downey was the best of the Irish today, taking 12th place after 130.4km from Beaugency to Levroux.
Darragh O’Mahony and Michael O’Loughlin were 17th and 44th, also on the same time as the winner.
Feeley was 74th and lost just 14 seconds. Teggart was 112th and lost 39 seconds.
Related News
The yellow jersey, centre above, lost the race lead after he was involved in the same crash as Matt Teggart and Mark Downey. Team GB's Matthew Gibson came through the mayhem to win.
While Dunbar was last across the line of the Irish, in 124th, that was due to his late crash. And he was credited with the same time as the bunch though he crossed the line some minutes down.
The stage was settled in a bunch sprint won by Matthew Gibson (Great Britain) from Szymon Sajnok (Poland) and Colin Heiderscheid (Luxembourg).
Very early in the stage a two-man move broke clear and was only caught close to the finish.
Escapees Ziga Horvat (Slovenia) and Fili Maciejuk (Poland) gained over five minutes with the Pole virtual yellow jersey for a long time.
Back the road the yellow jersey, Aalrust Hakon of Norway, came down in the crash that claimed Teggart.
However, while Teggart fought to get back on and lost very little time, Hakon trailed home some 14:56 down, second from last on the stage.
It meant the yellow jersey passes back to Alan Riou, the French rider who won stage 2 and has already worn the leader’s jersey for two stages.
Topics
