Jamie Meehan (AVC Aix Provence Dole) and Adam Rafferty (Hagens Berman Jayco) put in very strong performances on stage 5 of Circuit des Ardennes (2.2) yesterday, when Meehan's stage win chance was snuffed out within touching distance of the line.
Riding his first season at Continental level this year, Meehan was strong on the climbs on the 173km stage to Saint-Marceau and attacked late.
Though he rode clear in a two-man move, and they looked like they would make it all the way, the field ran then down just before the line.
"With about 2-2.5k to go, I let off a flyer and got a wee gap, me and a guy from Lidl-Trek, we went for it," he told stickybottle. "We got caught 20 or 30 metres from the line. It was quite sickening, I thought we had it.
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"It was just maybe 30 metres too far. But overall I guess I can be happy with the shape, considering it's been quite a hot race, overall I'm going OK."
After being caught by the front of the bunch, he ended the day in 9th place; a very solid result at this level, on a day when the front group numbered just 34 riders.
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"There was a few decent climbs today, it was fairly warm and a pace really ramped up with about 100k to go to try and split the group up over a climb," Meehan said.
"I made it over, but it was a large enough group and then other riders came back. And then for the next 70k it was just rinse and repeat, hitting the climbs hard. The last two climbs, from about 20k to go, they were spicy, quite hard."
For his part, Rafferty was in a five-man breakaway for much of the stage. However, it was eventually caught having faced an uphill battle to remain clear as the Israel Premier Tech Academy team - including Irish first-year U23 Patrick Casey - pulled hard on the front for its race leader, Bradley Gilmore.
And when the breakaway was caught, and Meehan's late move was closed down, Gilmore sprinted in to win the stage, his fifth win of the season; extending his overall lead thanks to time bonuses.
After Meehan claiming 9th place, Liam O'Brien (Lidl Trek) was 63rd at 4:16, Rafferty was 80th at 10:00 and also claimed the combativity prize, Seth Dunwoody (Bahrain Victorious Devo) was 98th at 13:44 and Casey was 122nd at 20:16.
The race concludes today with a 167km stage from Chooz to Charleville-Mézières.
