One of the young Irish riders to have stomped through the youth ranks in recent years, Tom Moriarty had taken a very tidy victory on the final stage of the Gorey Three Day.
The O’Leary Stone Kanturk man, who won in horrible conditions
in Blarney recently, went on the attack today and had the legs to finish the
job.
While he and his breakaway companion, from the British Spokes Racing Team, were hunted down by a large chasing group; Moriarty was a match for it out front.
After doing the bulk of the work to ensure he wasn’t
caught, he rode a strong and tactically astute sprint to win the final stage.
The teenager, who is already part of the junior national
set up despite only having just come up from the U16 ranks, was searching for
two things today; a stage win and maybe even the yellow jersey.
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And while he came up a little short in the battle for yellow - 19 seconds to be precise - he won the day and moved up the general standings to 4th; a nice return for his efforts.
There was no dislodging Oscar Onley from the leader’s jersey. The young British rider and his Spokes Racing Team outfit rode a great race this weekend.
Spokes Racing Team's impressive team effort started on Saturday’s opener when Logan McLean went for a long range breakaway and just about held off the head of the bunch to win.
They lost the yellow, to Arcane’s Darragh Zaidan, the
following morning in the TT, won by South East Road Club’s Jay Earls.
But the Spokes Racing riders were still well in
contention starting yesterday afternoon’s circuit race stage 3 in Gorey.
Indeed, Onley was 4th in the 6.4km test and started stage
3 on Sunday afternoon 4th overall, just four seconds off the experienced
Zaidan.
On stage 3 Onley got clear in the winning breakaway;
taking 3rd on the stage behind James Becker (Velo Club Eckwersheim) and Matthew
Devins (Yeats Country).
That was enough to put him into the yellow jersey for
today’s final stage from Gorey to Blessington.
After about 35km today Moriarty took flight with Adam Mitchell (Spokes Racing) and Andre Grennell (Arcane).
The three leaders set about working together but Grennell had clearly dug deep to get into the move and paid for those efforts; going back to the bunch.
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However, Moriarty and Mitchell, whose team mate was in
yellow, persevered. Moriarty had started the day some 1:16 down and he was
virtual yellow on the road for a long time.
While the gap came down a little before the finish, to 36 seconds, the two leaders survived.
With the breeze coming from the right at the finish,
Moriarty had the presence of mind to stay left in the sprint for the line.
That forced Mitchell to try to come around him on the
right, into the breeze, if he wanted to pass.
In the end the O’Leary Stone Kanturk man was too strong;
Tom Moriarty sprinting in to win from Mitchell.
Back in the bunch, Onley had done enough to keep his overall lead and ran out the winner of Gorey Three Day 2019.
Veteran Craig Sweetman of Stamullen Road Club came through for 3rd on the stage.
Showing he still has the goods to do damage at the end of a hard weekend's racing, Sweetman also won the points classification.
He was 36 seconds back on today's stage, just ahead of Kevin Barclay, another of the Spokes Racing Team men.
Onley finished in the bunch, which was sprinting for 11th place some 57 seconds after Tom Moriarty reached the finish line.
The bunch sprint was taken by Zaidan, with race leader Onley just four places back; 15th on the stage.
He won overall by 14 seconds from Becker, with Devins 3rd overall at 18 seconds followed by Moriarty; just 19 seconds off the overall win in the end.
A special mention goes to Frank Gibson who very sadly passed away on the eve of the race this year.
Frank was very close to the group that organises the
Gorey; indeed he was one of them. And he was on everyone’s minds at the Easter
racing this weekend.
Despite losing such a close friend and colleague, the
organisers of the Gorey pressed on with the race; running another brilliant
edition in very sad circumstances.
Indeed, the fact the race went on was a fitting tribute to Frank, who loved being in the thick of Irish road racing.
- For full results from stage 4 and all the final classification results please follow this link.
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