Connor McConvey leads the Synergy Baku team during the opening stage in South Africa today; with the squad in the hunt for stage and overall honours this week.
The Irish trio of Connor McConvey, Philip Lavery and Irish national road champion Matt Brammeier have gotten off to a very good start in the five-stage Mzansi Tour in South Africa today, Tuesday.
Riding for their Synergy-Baku Continental-ranked team, the three Irish internationals and two of their team mates powered to 3rd place in the 5.5km team time trial around Emmarentia Dam.
The opening lung burster was won by UK-based squad Rapha Condor-JLT. They ripped around the course in a time of 6mins 37secs, at an average speed of 45.34kph.
That put them some four seconds ahead of MTN-Qhubeka; an African squad and the only ProContinental-ranked team in the race.
Advertisement
Synergy Baku were one further second back, edging out the WCC Africa team by just over half a second for the final place on the podium.
That performance leaves the three Irishmen in the top 15 overall and just 5 seconds off the yellow jersey of Kristian House, who takes the lead by virtue of being first over the line for the stage-winning team.
Synergy Baku were timed quickest up a small climb on the course used to allocate the climbers jersey after the stage.
And because their Austrian fast man Chris Schweizer led the team over the finish line, he gets to wear the polka dot jersey on tomorrow’s opening road stage.
Schweizer said while the jersey can only go to one man, it was on his shoulders because of the team effort.
“The jersey really belongs to every single rider on our team,” he said.
“It was only 5.5km but we are at 1,700 metre altitude and halfway was a steep uphill with a following false flat. It's been incredibly different racing here compared to low altitude; really tough.
“I took the steep bit on the front followed by Matt (Brammeier), who makes me really fight to get back on the last wheel.
“After my turn after the downhill I got a little gap but Brammi jumped in and saved me. Before the uphill to the finish Phil (Lavery) did an impressive long turn which allowed me to get a short breath to lead my guys to the finish.”
Team manager, David McQuaid said he was very pleased with how his charges had done in an event new to them in only their second season.
“To my memory there has been no TTT before, 2013 included. It's an impressive ride, if you look at the gaps behind.”
Tomorrow’s opening road stage is an undulating 140km from Golden Gates Highland National Park to Clarens. The short sharp climb at the end of the stage could suit any one of the Irish riders.
Related News
Thursday’s queen stage involves a mountain-top finish at Golden Gate National Park, which should suit McConvey best.
The final two stages on Friday and Saturday are likely to come down to bunch sprints, though Brammeier will be looking to get up the road and Lavery will be hoping to be in a position to use his kick from any group sprinting for the win.
Brammeier already has a classification jersey to his name this year, having won the mountains competition in the Tour de Langkawi last month. He was also second on a stage there and will be looking to continue that run in South Africa this week.
McConvey, like Brammeier, harbours hopes of a bigger contract if he can put a string of results together. He was second overall in the Rás last year and, among other notable 2013 results, he won the Tour of Azerbaijan climbers competition. He is well capable of a stage win this week and perhaps the overall.
Lavery had not planned to race internationally this year until he was offered a place by McQuaid on the eve of the new season.
While he says he did not have a big winter precisely because he had no plans to race seriously in 2014, he has won a couple of races at home in recent weeks and looks to be gaining condition nicely.
Winter base or no winter base, he’s a strong and canny rider capable of bagging international results this year and some of the stage profiles should suit him this week.
McConvey looks around to make sure his effort is not splitting the team's formation; Lavery digs in fourth in line
Synergy Baku's Chris Schweizer takes receipt of the climbers' jersey by virtue of the team being timed fastest up a small climb on today's team time trial course.
The Rapha Condor JLT sqaud on their way to victory and putting their main Kristian House into the first yellow jersey of the five-day race in South Africa.
Topics
