Mark Dowling, one of the best riders in Irish cycling for over 15 years, has today added a missing win from his palmares when he took an impressive victory in the Shay Elliott Classic.
The All human-VeloRevolution rider hit the finishing club of Drumgoff in a very strong breakaway and that simply did what he does best; squeezed on the pedals as the road kicked up to ride to a fine solo victory.
While the six breakaway men did a great ride today, Conn McDunphy (Team Skyline) and Ruairí Byrne (UCD Cycling Club) also put in a monster effort to get across to the break. Byrne put in an especially impressive performance to close the gap as McDunphy already had a man up the road. But the day belonged to Dowling; a popular winner of what is one of the hardest and most prestigious races in the country.
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"Every year, this is the one you want to win and I think everyone in cycling knows it's always the one I wanted to win but the only one I hadn't won. So that puts more pressure on you and more guys ride against you," a relieved and delighted Dowling said at the finish.
"So I figured I'd just take the pressure off (myself) and just ride it like any other race; just turn up, do my best. And I think by taking pressure off myself, it finally paid off."
However, while he deliberately went out to take a more relaxed approach, he was up against it at the finish as some of the riders he was with at the base of the climb time were victory contenders. Added to that, last year's winner, Conn McDunphy (Team Skyline Cadence), had moved off the front of the bunch and was in a group trying to get across to the leaders.
Dowling had broken away in a six-man group not long after the start today, as the race moved onto the 24km Ballinaclash circuit for four laps.
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In that group with Dowling were: track worlds and Europeans medal winner Jack Bernard Murphy (Murphy Surveyors), former top road rider making a comeback this year Ronan Tuomey (Unattached), Dane Johannes Dahl (Roadman), the in-form Ciaran Maquire (Dan Morrissey-Primór by Pissei) and prolific winner Paul Kennedy (Team Skyline).
However, though that was a six-strong unit made up of some big engines, they were not allowed simply ride away towards the spoils, with their advantage around the one-minute mark for much of the race.
By the end of the opening lap of four they had nudged out the advantage to 50 seconds, with Murphy taking the first sprint prime. On the second passage of the circuit, there were repeated efforts off the front of the bunch to bridge across to the leaders, which reduced their gap for a while before Dahl took the climbers' prime.
At that end of that second lap, the gap was about 55 seconds between the breakaway and the bunch and had grown close to 1:20 by the end of the third lap. At that point of the race, Lindsay Watson (Powerhouse Sport) and young Curtis Neill (Lyon Sprint Evolution), had broken clear of the bunch and were trying to bridge to the breakaway, but were still one minute in arrears.
On the last lap, the gap between breakaway and bunch held steady, at around the 1:20 marker, before a 12-man chasing group got clear of the bunch and began to make some inroads into the leaders' advantage.
While McDunphy was in that move, so too was Dowling's team mate Daire Feeley, and the in-form Gareth O'Neill (Athlete Nutrition Coach HD). From that 12, four pushed on - including McDunphy, Feeley and O'Neill - with a big effort to get on terms with the leaders, and succeeded in catching them.
However, when the enlarged front group hit the climb - with about two minutes over the main field - Dowling turned on the power, as he and McDunphy pulled clear of the other breakaway men. And though McDunphy rode very strongly, Dowling distanced him to take a big win, with McDunphy in 2nd, Dahl 3rd, Murphy 4th and Maguire taking 5th.
