Michael O'Loughlin in the colours of NRPT-Magnet.ie riding in France against national squads from all over the world. His ride today was as good, if not better, than his Worlds ride last year (Photo with thanks to Be-Celt)
By Brian Canty
Michael O’Loughlin has delivered his performance of the season so far in winning the second stage of the Trophee Centre Morbihan 2.Nations Cup stage race in France.
The Irish junior international, riding for the NRPT-Magnet.ie team blitzed the 7.5 kilometre time-trial in a stunning time of 9mins 10secs.
O’Loughlin beat some world class opposition today, going one second faster than Russia’s Nicolai Ilichev with Frenchman Louis Louvet in third a further two seconds behind.
His average speed of over 49 kilometres per hour on junior gears was truly excellent.
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He’s now up to second overall after finishing in the main bunch on yesterday’s opening stage.
There, he was 14 seconds behind stage winner Mikkel Honore of Denmark while the latter's teammate Anthon Charmig was second in the same time.
Also in the race are Adam Stenson and Jake Gray. They finished in the bunch yesterday but Aaron Swan, Conor McCann and Patrick Goszczyk were listed as non-finishers.
O'Loughlin is perfectly poised to take the race lead on today’s final stage and with the help of Stenson and Gray team he shouldn’t be too far away.
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The lads of NRPT-Magnet.ie are flying the flag in France: Left to right - Michael O'Loughlin, Jake Gray, Conor McCann, Patrick Goszczyk, Aaron Swan and Adam Stenson (Photo with thanks to Be-Celt)
It’s a remarkable result for the teenager who has been sick recently.
He has also had the matter of completing college exams in Waterford Institute of Technology to contend with.
Still, they didn’t stop him winning the O’Leary’s Stone Kanturk Three-Day over the May Bank Holiday weekend and the Gorey Three-Day a month previous.
He escaped in two-man moves on the opening stages of both races and then demolised the TT stage 2 in both events before the holding the race lead to the finish.
It all augers very well for O’Loughlin who is having a slow and steady build-up to the season.
His major objectives will be the World and European Championships.
Last year he finished a brilliant eighth overall in the time-trial at the World Championships in Spain and as a first year junior that was an outstanding result.
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