Irish junior Liam O'Brien has shown he is in great form leading into next week's Junior Tour of Ireland after taking the best result of his season in Belgium today. And now the second-year Irish junior is in real contention in the general classification with three stages completed and two remaining.
O'Brien, who has been junior cyclocross champion and was 2nd in both the road race and TT at the National Road Championships two weeks ago, has been selected onto the Irish team for the Junior Tour and can now go into it full of confidence.
His result today against the watch - on stage 3 of Sint Martinusprijs Kontich (2.1) - suggests his time trialing ability is top level in a European context. The riders around him at the top of the result are some of the best road racers and testers on the junior European road scene this year.
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In the 10.6km individual TT from Waarloos to Kontich, O'Brien placed 4th from an international field of 133 riders. The stage was won by Steffen De Schuyteneer (AG2R Citroën U19 Team), this year's junior Gent-Wevelgem winner, in a time of 13:19. He was 5 seconds up on both Sente Sentjens (ACROG-Tormans) and Australian junior TT champion Oscar Chamberlain (AG2R Citroën U19 Team), who were 2nd and 3rd.
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Then came O'Brien - the Fermoy CC man riding for British team Tofauti Everyone Active - in 4th place at 9 seconds. After O'Brien, the gaps were bigger, with last year's overall winner, Belgian Mauro Cuylits (AVIA - Rudyco Cycling Team) 5th at 17 seconds.
De Schuyteneer led the race overall going into this evening's road race stage as his team also won the TTT that opened proceedings on Thursday. O'Brien's team was 5th in the 18km TTT, at 51 seconds, and the Irish rider finished in the main bunch on yesterday's stage 2, which ended in a bunch sprint.
Those results mean O'Brien was 6th overall at 1:12 going into this evening's 102km road race stage in Kontich. The race is set to conclude tomorrow, Sunday, with another road stage; some 118.9km from Duffel to Kontich.
