One of the best up and coming athletes in Irish cycling at present, Kevin McCambridge has made a strong start to his time racing in France.
The teenager was
in action at the weekend in Les Boucles de l'Essor, a 116km ‘elite nationale’ event in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department
in south western France.
McCambridge, who turned 19-years-old last October, has been settling into life with his new team, AVC Aix En Provence, and wasted no time getting stuck in last weekend.
On a sodden and cold day for racing, he got up the road
early and managed to take some primes along the way to win the sprint
classification in the race.
While his breakaway was later caught, a three-man escape group eventually got clear and survived to the finish to fight for the win.
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McCambridge finished in a 21-man chasing group some 51
seconds behind the three leaders. All the other riders in the 200-man field
finished in groups between five and 11 minutes down.
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Ireland’s McCambridge finished the race in 17th place and
got a trip to the podium to pick up his first prize and jersey with his new
team.
Marc Brustenga (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
Elite) took the sprint from the winning move to claim the victory ahead of team
mates Clément Jolibert and Mickaël Guichard (Team Pro Immo Nicolas Roux).
McCambridge told stickybottle it was
such a wet and cold day out in the French Basque on Saturday that it felt like
being home in Ireland.
“I was really excited to get racing
as I haven’t raced a lot in the last two years nearly due to Covid-19,” he
explained of last year’s season being almost completely wiped out.
He added while the race was quite
flat, there were some punchy climbs, which suited him, adding that winning a
sprints classification was something new for him.
Overall, he said he has been very
impressed with the level of racing so far and at how well organised the events
are, with closed roads and constant action and pressure inside the peloton.
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