Brian Canty
Charlie Prendergast (Cunga Bikes) made it look easy when he scorched to a superb win in the Galway Bay Criterium around the roads of Claddagh on the west side of the city tonight, Saturday.
Prendergast, who finished runner-up to Sam Bennett in the 2008 National Junior Championships in Cork but won the title a year later in Dunboyne, appeared to show no ill-effects of a gruelling An Post Rás that he was forced to abandon through injury, when he won by over 40 seconds on his own tonight from veteran Padraig Marrey of Western Lakes.
“I may have made it look easy but I can tell you it certainly wasn’t,” laughed Prendergast.
“I’ve good legs now at the moment so hopefully they’ll last up until the Nationals next weekend.”
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The Mayo youngster, under the tutelage of one of Ireland’s finest ever riders Davy O’Loughlin, believes the Rás has stood to him and he could potentially challenge for a top five placing in the U23 category next weekend.
“It’s difficult to say, there’s Bennett, Lavery, Buggle going well so we’ll see but I definitely came out of the Rás a lot better than I went into it so that’s good news anyway.”
Prendergast was forced to retire prematurely from that race due to a hernia operation and though he was subsequently unable to train for the best part of two weeks he admits he’s over that trauma.
“It was unbearable, the pain. I said if I got through that I’d get through a lot.”
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Studying in NUIG full-time, the bike is merely a hobby he happens to be very good at but he didn’t rule out the possibility of taking it more seriously after next year.
Tonight’s race was run on a handicapped bases with the A4 bunch getting a one minute advantage over the A3 group and they, in turn, got a generous two minute buffer over the combined A1 and A2 group.
And the organisers seemed to have gotten it spot on because it all came together with just four laps to go, primarily due to the hard tempo being set by the latter group.
The three kilometre circuit and the difficult conditions made it almost impossible for those with designs on getting away up until that point but Prendergast took the race on and attacked with three laps to go and quickly opened a gap of 40 seconds on those behind.
A number of attempts to bring him back proved futile and he held his lead right to the finish with Marrey leading in a bunch of 49 riders for second.
Results
1) C Prendergast (Cunga Bikes)
2) P Marrey (western Lakes)
3) D Joyce (Galway Bay CC)
4) T Fallon (Seven Springs)
5) A Jacobsen (Galway Bay CC)
6) D Brennan (Castlebar CC)
1st prime: D Queally (West Clare)
2nd Prime: J Kelly (Swords)
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