Liam Curley has kicked his season off with a very solid weekend of racing; his 4th place at the Mick Lally Memorial on Saturday scaled up to victory at the main event in the Seamus Kennedy Memorial in Nobber, Co Meath, yesterday.
Curley said the racing at the Navan Road Club promotion swung between lots of attacking and more negative and tactical riding. With about two laps to go in the 115km race when he got clear with Dean Harvey (Spellman Dublin Port) and that duo were joined by a number of others.
On the last lap
Curley got clear with Gareth O’Neill (Caldwell Cycles). As they worked up and
over Harvey attacked from the chasing group in the final 10km and bridged about
30 seconds up to the two leaders.
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While Harvey did
very well to make the juncture, especially after his winning efforts at the
Annaclone GP in Banbridge 24 hours earlier, he only caught Curley and O’Neill
with about 2km to go.
Curley, who enjoyed a brilliant season last year, then attacked hard with about 1km to go and held off the other two; Harvey taking 2nd and O’Neill 3rd in the two-sprint behind the winner.
The chasers, competing for 4th place, were about one minute back, with Conor McCann (Inspired Cycling) proving best of those. Tim O’Regan (All Human-VeloRevolution) was next, in 5th, followed by Shane Smith (Moynalty CC), Luke Smith (Moynalty CC) and Mitchell McLaughlin (Inspired Cycling).
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Others who had
been active off the front in the pointy end of the race included: Sean Nolan (EvoPro
Racing), Adam Stenson (Dan Morrissey-MIG-Pactimo), Leo Doyle (TWC Tempo Veldhoven) and Mark Dowling (All human-VeloRevolution) among others.
Curley told stickybottle he was pleased to win and had
been training since late last year in anticipation of racing abroad this year, though
was competing yesterday in the colours of Technological
University Dublin; the college where he studies Food Science.
“I’ve been training very
hard and getting looked after by TU Dublin, I’m on a sports scholarship and
based in Grangegorman,” he said. “They’ve got a great sports scholarship and
they’ve looked after me so well.”
He said he was very
happy with his form and while UCD Cycling Club had ridden “a very smart race”
at the Mick Lally – with Jason Kenney soloing to win as Conor Murnane and Andrew
Ryan patrolled the chasing group – he made sure to be in most of the moves yesterday
and to mark the key riders.
“I’ve been training since November for racing abroad so I’ve been very motivated,” he said.
For full results of all races at Seamus Kennedy Memorial, please follow this link.
