Liam Frawley of Galway Bay CC has opened his 2013 account in fine style, getting across to the winning breakaway in the West Coast Wheelers open race in Loughrea, Co Galway, yesterday, before proving strongest in the attacking of the closing kilometres.
The winning escape of five riders moved clear of the 90-strong bunch on the long incline with around 20km remaining in the 82km race. While Frawley missed that move, he bided his time until what looked like a race-winning gap had emerged and then blasted across on his own.
When he made the juncture the escape was working well to hold off the main group behind, which never threw in the towel. The gap was only at around 30 seconds when Frawley joined those up front and with such a small buffer that breakaway could never relax.
Advertisement
With Frawley up the road were Gareth McCormack (Castlebar), Dermot Ratford (Tipperary), Charles Prendergast (Polygon Sweet Nice), Shane Scully (Visit Nenagh) and Aaron O'Donoghue (South Dublin CC).
They worked strongly enough as a unit to keep their noses out front approaching the final kilometres, and as they started to think of the finish a number of attacks fragmented the leaders with Frawley getting the jump on the others to take the win. McCormack was not far back in second, followed by Prendergast who was riding his first race for his new UCI Continental team.
The race was a handicap event open to A1/A2/A3 riders, with the A3s getting a four-minute gap on the scratch men, who numbered around 25 riders. That scratch group split, with four riders going clear first and then six. These merged and together they caught the hardworking A3 riders ahead of them at around the 40km mark. Despite plenty of attacking from the large lead group, nothing decisive went clear and at the 60km mark a further group of six scratch men made the junction.
It was within a couple of kilometres of that point that the winning breakaway went clear.
Related News
Meanwhile, around 90 riders also lined out for a separate 55km A4 race. The race was won by Sean O’Malley (Western Lakes CC) in a gallop from Covey Wheelers duo Tom Burke and James McGreevy. The winner also took the KOH prime at Derrybrien.
West Coast Wheelers CC 2013 Road Race Results
A1/A2/A3 82km Race
1st: Liam Frawley, Galway Bay CC
2nd: Gareth McCormack, Castlebar
3rd: Charles Prendergast, Polygon Sweet Nice
4th: Dermot Ratford, Tipperary
5th: Aaron O'Donoghue, South Dublin
6th: Shane Scully, Visit Nenagh
7th: Derek Joyce, Galway Bay CC
8th: Mark Shannon, Burren CC
(Prizes sponsored by MBW)
Nigel's Cycle Store KOH Prime
John Cleary, Seven Springs
A4 Race 55km
1st: Sean O'Malley, Western Lakes
2nd: Thomas Burke, Westport
3rd: James McGreevy, Westport
4th: Sean McCarthy, Galway Bay
5th: Damien Foley, Donegal Bay
6th: Mark Power, C4SC
(Prizes sponsored by TriBikes and Kearney Cycles)
Nigel's Cycle Store KOH Prime
Sean O'Malley, Western Lakes
Topics
