Charlie Meredith won a thrilling penultimate stage of the Scott Junior Tour of Ireland, edging Colton Brookeshire of the Specialized team by half a wheel, left, atop the summit finish at Gallows Hill in Cratloe. (Photos; Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
By Brian Canty
Charlie Meredith is a name we’ll be hearing a lot more about in the years to come and he proved that by stamping his class all over the Scott Junior Tour of Ireland today.
The young Englishman won the penultimate road stage atop the summit finish of Gallow Hill outside Cratloe in the south of county Clare to maintain his lead at the top of the general classification.
He is three seconds ahead of Robert O'Leary going into the final stage tomorrow afternoon.
Today’s finish all came down to the final climb of the day where most of the main contenders came to the base of it together.
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O’Leary is excellent in those kinds of finals but today, he had no answer to Meredith who scorched up it and dove for the line in an effort to take the stage win and take as much time as he possibly could.
He would take the win but O’Leary lost no time and he leapfrogged the man in second, Matthew Cox (Giant Halo).
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There were five climbs and 101.3 kilometres to negotiate today and a fast start saw the main bunch split in half early on.
Logan Zuegar (Hot Tubes), Wyatt Goral (Holowesko Citadel pb Hincapie) and Riley Sheehan (Tarrant Skoda Munster Academy) were the three riders who comprised the days’ break and though they had almost two minutes on the bunch at one stage, they were reeled in as the riders approached Cratloe.
When they were caught, Goral’s teammate Micah Milne made a late bid for victory with a brave attack but he too was caught as the finish loomed.
And so a reduced front group of around a dozen came to the climb for a showdown and despite a huge effort by NRPT-Magnet.ie man Ben Walsh and the aforementioned O’Leary, the best they could manage was third and fourth, respectively.
Aaron Kearney was also up there, finishing seventh at five seconds but he is no threat on general classification.
Another irishman, Conor Leech of Cycling Leinster put in a fine ride to finish 12th and he is just 43 seconds down overall.
Colton Brookeshire of the Specialized team was edged into second by the flying Meredith though the former did end the day in the green points jersey.
Eoghan McLaughlin retained the mountains jersey in what was another brilliant performance by him and his team while Ben Walsh took the white first year junior jersey.
Tomorrow's final stage is a 77.5-kilometre circuit race (7 laps of 10 kilometres) and though there is one slight pinch, it's hard to see Meredith losing the jersey now.
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