Sean Lacey & Joe Fenlon on the double; wrap up fantastic team ride at ‘Des Hanlon’

Sean Lacey takes a great win just ahead of team mate and National Veterans’ Champion Joe Fenlon (Photo: www.blackumbrellaphotography.com)

By Brian Canty

Sean Lacey (AquaBlue) has taken one of the biggest one-day wins of his career at the Des Hanlon Memorial in Carlow yesterday, Sunday.

The Kerryman’s team had a plan from the outset and executed it to absolute perfection to take 1^st and 2^nd in the first ‘classic’ race of the year, with national veterans’ champion Joe Fenlon taking the runner’s up slot behind his team mate.

And putting in perhaps the ride of his life, Liam Frawley (Galway Bay) made the winning breakaway, stayed there all day and took the final place on the podium.

While Frawley’s name is no stranger to reports on stickybottle following a number of wins and a string of high placings in the west in recent seasons, today’s performance was recorded against the best domestic riders in the country and in one of the most competitive one-day outings of the year.

On a freezing day for bike racing, winner Lacey was among a five-man move that went clear inside the first five miles of the race, with three of them never to be seen again.

As well as the AquaBlue duo of Lacey and Fenlon in that breakaway was another rider from the team, Olan Barrett. These were joined by Ryan O’Donovan (Cork County) and Frawley.

That group rode well together on the first of three laps, though O’Donovan and Barrett paid for their early efforts when they got dropped on the second lap.

Conor Murphy (Eurocycles) – the winner of the Cycleways Cup in Navan a few weeks ago – blasted across the gap to the leading trio to make it four up front. And despite the gap to the group behind ranging from three minutes to just 50 seconds, the leaders hung on to the finish where Lacey was too strong for the others.

It was the Tralee man’s third win of the season, having won the Lacey Cup last month and Rás Luimní two weeks ago.

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It’s not the first time that Lacey has pulled off such a long and successful-breakaway win because in 2010 he did something very similar in what was then the John Deere Classic in Donegal. It formed part of the Subway Classic League – a title Lacey won while riding in the colours of the Edge Sports Shop in Cork.

But yesterday’s win is one he’ll remember for a long time.

Straight from the gun he put the hammer down and originally took with him Ian Richardson (UCD), Colin Robinson (Stamullen), the aforementioned O’Donovan and an Orwell Wheelers rider who we believe was Eric Downey.

But there was a re-shuffle to that breakaway as riders lost their place and across came Barrett and Fenlon, as well as Frawley to link up with O’Donovan and Lacey.

They worked well together and by the climb after Castlecomer had 30 seconds of a lead on the peloton behind, despite some strong attacks from the likes of Paidi O’Brien (Planet Tri), Peter Hawkins (IG Sigma Sport) and Greg Swinand (Usher IRC).

But they never made any inroads and by the second lap, the gap swelled to 52 seconds and soon went to a minute and a half, chiefly due to the strong pulls of Olan Barrett.

As mentioned, Barrett would pay for those efforts, as did Ryan O’Donovan as they tailed off and that left three men up front and still a lap to go.

They were of course boosted by Murphy who rode across a one minute gap on the hardest section of the race in less than eight kilometres and he then posed a huge threat, such was his apparent strength.

But the AquaBlue duo played it cute. Fenlon attacked with a kilometre to go, Murphy tried to jump on his wheel and Lacey jumped on Murphy. Frawley brought up the rear. Fenlon was caught by Murphy with 200metres to go and that was when Lacey attacked, off the back of Murphy to take the win with some ease.

Fenlon rolled over in second with Frawley in third.

Des Hanlon Classic, Carlow