Matthew Walls wins Junior Tour of Ireland, hangs on after late scare | Video

Matthew Walls regained the yellow jersey with a fantastic breakaway ride yesterday and has hung on today to wrap up overall victory (Photo: Stephen McMahon-Sportsfile)

Matthew Walls (Cycling Leinster) has survived a final stage scare at the Quanta Capital Junior Tour of Ireland in Co Clare to claim a brilliant general classification victory after a hard fought race.

Walls made, indeed forced and drove along, the two key moves of the race, winning stage 2 in a two-man breakaway and finishing 2nd yesterday, in another two-man move that was the key move of the race in terms of time gained.

He went into today's final stage - a 79.1km circuit race just outside Ennis - with a handsome lead of 44 seconds over Hot Tubes team mates Luca Bednarek and Jack Ray who were 2nd and 3rd on the same time going into the final stage today.

However, when Ray got into the winning breakaway today and at one point gained 44 seconds, Walls and his Cycling Leinster team were forced to redouble their efforts on the front of the bunch, after riding hard for the whole stage.

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In the breakaway were: GC threat Jack Ray (Hot Tubes), eventual stage winner Seth Jackson (FH MAS Cams), Ben Arey (Halesowen Academy-Mapei), Ryan Oldfield (Halesowen Academy-Mapei), Caden Freyre (Hot Tubes), 7th overall at 58 seconds Garrett Beshore (Boulder Junior Cycling), Hugh Óg Mulhearne (Cycling Ireland) and Desmond Mohr (Boulder Junior Cycling).

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Mulhearne, who was away on his own for a long time on yesterday's stage, looked very strong on the latter stages of today's race. However, Walls was a match for the breakaway riders, powering away on the front, especially on the last lap after the breakaway's advantage had briefly gone out to 44 seconds.

By the the finish, though the breakaway hung on to fight it out for the stage honours, Walls and his team had reduced the gap enough - to just 16 seconds - to ensure they kept the yellow jersey, with Walls confirmed as the 2025 champion.

Up front, Seth Jackson (FH MAS Cams) claimed the stage victory from the breakaway group. Ryan Oldfield (Halesowen Academy-Mapei) was 2nd, with Mulhearne finishing this Junior Tour strongly and taking 3rd place on the stage, the only Irish rider in the breakaway.

More to come.

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