Josie Knight has taken the opening stage of Rás na mBan after breaking clear in a two-rider move and having the legs to finish the job.
Now riding for Great Britain, Knight
was raised in Co Kerry and previously rode for Ireland.
As a first-year junior rider she won silver in the individual pursuit at the European Track
Championships in Portugal.
However, she switched her allegiance
and for the past couple of years has been competing as a British rider, gaining
international selection on the track and road.
Still aged just 22 years, she showed real class in the latter stages of today’s opening battle at Rás na mBan and takes the race lead as well as the first victory on offer.
She was off the front in a two-rider move with just seconds to spare as the 70.1km stage from Kilkenny to Gorwan entered its final 5km but grew the gap and powered home to win.
Advertisement
Knight put lengths into her breakaway companion Claire Steels (Brother UK Fusion RT) in the sprint to the line; the duo having 14 seconds on the peloton on the line.
Junior rider Lucy O'Donnell also put in a very solid performance and the teenager now holds the leading Irish rider classification jersey; showing real grit against the big guns.
How the stage unfolded
An early three-rider breakaway dominated the first part of the stage; that move comprised of Natalie Grinczer (Brother UK Fusion RT), Amalie Lutro (Region Sør Norway), and Jo Tindley (Velo Performance GB).
They pulled out a gap initially of
about 30 seconds when Lutro was dropped on the cat 2 Coppanagh climb by the
other two.
The two leaders combined very well and managed to build their advantage after the climb to almost one minute.
Related News
Tindley took maximum points at the top of the ascent from Natalie Grinczer. They were followed in 3rd place by Claire Steels (Brother UK Fusion RT) with Elynor Bäckstedt (Storey Racing) picking up the remaining three points on offer for fourth.
The Irish national team and the
British national riders took up the chase on the front of the reduced peloton.
However, despite that chase the gap
continued to grow to the two leaders; reaching about 1:20 before it then
started to come back.
With some 20km remaining the advantage enjoyed by the two
leaders had dipped below 30 seconds and they looked doomed.
And with just 13km remaining as the racing flew through
Paulstown Tindley and Grinczer were caught.
However, while a bunch sprint might have been expected from
that point, 34 Claire Steels attacked in the
cross-headwind.
Yvonne Doran (Cycling Leinster) and Silje Mathisen (Region TeVeBu Norway) went after her but we caught, only for Knight to attack hard and ride across to Steels.
With 8km to go they enjoyed a gap of just under 20 seconds as Irish criterium champion Ellen McDermott (Noord Holland) broke clear of the bunch in a bid to catch the two leaders.
However, while McDermott got close to
them she was soon swallowed up by the bunch. And though it looked as if Knight
and Steels would go the same way, they both put in a fantastic ride to hang on.
They had been six and eight seconds with just 5km to go, but
3km further up the road they had pulled that out to 18 seconds.
And while Steels led into the final corner, Knight used her
craft and strength to come off her wheel and take a fantastic.
Topics
