Townsend in 150km Euros breakaway, Corkery suffers fracture in crash | Video

Rory Townsend leads the breakaway in the elite men's road race at the European Road Championships in the Netherlands (Photo: SWPix.com)

The Irish elite men had a mixed day the European Road Championships in the Netherlands, with Rory Townsend going on the attack for 150km as his team mate Dillon Corkery crashed out in an incident that took out several riders.

Townsend went with an early move, right after the start, which eventually resulted in a five-rider breakaway that also included TT champion Josh Tarling (Great Britain), Stefan Bissegger (Switzerland), Normal Vahtra (Estonia) and Mathias Vacek (Czech Republic).

However, while the breakaway quickly set about working together as a group and pulled out a decent gap, they were kept on a tight leash. They never gained much more than two minutes, with Belgium and Denmark especially active on the front of the bunch.

The five escapees still had two minutes when a large crash in the bunch, with 115km to go, put Corkery out of the race; medical checks confirming he broke his elbow in the fall.

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The breakaway's advantage dropped below one minute shortly after that point, with Townsend attacking up front and going solo for a period before being caught by the others. When the breakaway reached the Col du Vam circuit, for six laps, the gap was just 45 seconds.

Townsend, Tarling and Vahtra were then distanced by by Vacek and Bissegger; with the latter duo not caught until 30km to go. After they were swept up, Christophe Laporte (France) eventually forced the winning breakaway, on the climb on the penultimate lap.

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It included: Wout van Aert (Belgium), Olav Kooij (Netherlands), John Degenkolb (Germany), Rasmus Tiller (Norway), Arnaud De Lie (Belgium), Sandy Dujardin (France), Mads Pedersen and Andreas Kron (Denmark) and Mike Teunissen (Netherlands).

And when Laporte attacked with 12km to go, he got a gap on the others. Though it was just 12 seconds as he reached the climb for the final ascent to the line, he hung on to win. Van Aert - with Kooij on his wheel and De Lie close behind - got right up to Laporte before the line but could not pass him.

Laporte hung on for a great victory, with Van Aert 2nd - his favoured position at major championships - and Kooij taking an impressive bronze medal, showing he is shaping up as a classics man rather than simply a pure sprinter. De Lie was 4th, with Ireland's Townsend abandoning after his breakaway heroics.

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