Mark Dowling on his way to stage and overall victory on the summit finish that settled the 2014 Suir Valley Three Day (Photo: Dave Coleman - Dc Images)
By Gerard Cromwell
Absent from the domestic peloton for a month, Dubliner Mark Dowling went into this weekend’s Suir Valley Three-Day under the radar of many.
Although he stayed within touching distance of the leader all weekend, he never stuck his nose above the parapet until the final kilometres of the final stage, where he left all in his wake to snatch both the stage win and overall victory.
Having been led up towards the race's summit finish of The Nire by teammate James Davenport, one surge around 2km from the top was all Dowling needed to ensure he went home with the final yellow jersey, which is exactly the way he planned it.
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Having finished third on the opening stage, Dowling lost no more than seven seconds over the next two stages and although he had a strong Cycling Leinster team behind him, let the other squads in the battle for overall honours throw down their cards before he revealed the ace up his sleeve.
“In my head going into the race, I wanted to take at least third place on stage one but to have a strong team like UCD or Aquablue ahead of me so they would have to ride throughout the race.
“The idea would have been to let them attack each other and for me to stay within touching distance of them and then use my team to make sure I got the bottom of the last climb in the front group.
“I had the confidence in my form to claw back the few seconds today. It's amazing, but it just seemed to work out like that.”
When fourth overall Colm Cassidy of UCD went clear early on the final stage, Dowling and his Leinster squad watched as the Champion Systems Maxgear squad of British race leader Dillon Byrne and the Aquablue squad of second placed Bryan McCrystal burned their matches in the chase.
The yellow jersey of Dillon Byrne and the green jersey wearer Bryan McCrystal were strong this weekend, but trailed stage and overall winner Dowling on the deciding ascent of The Nire (Photo: Dave Coleman - Dc Images)
“We knew the British guys would be chasing everything so the plan was to let McCrystal and Cassidy do all the attacking because we knew they maybe wouldn’t perform that well on the mountain.
“The idea was to let the British guys chase them all day and use up their team.
"Then when it came to the mountain, they’d be gassed and I'd go for the stage and the overall and that’s how it ended up.
“Colm went up the road and put in an absolute stormer. The British guys were in bits trying to chase them.
"They were looking for a bit of assistance off us but I knew if we started to help them they might have a bit more firepower when we got to the finish.”
With Cassidy reeled in towards the end of the stage and Dowling well positioned towards the front of the peloton at the foot of the first category summit finish, things were still going to plan for the Dubliner.
“When we got to the bottom of the climb, James Davenport was with me so I got him to attack, to get about 200m up the climb.
“I was able to attack out of the front of the bunch and the yellow jersey came with me. I knew that he’d chase me but once I rode across to James I knew we’d have him isolated.
“The plan was to try and attack him repeatedly and see if I could gain the seven seconds. It sounds like a small gap but it’s actually quite hard if someone is stuck to your wheel.
“With 2km to go, I knew I was going to have to attack soon enough but I just kept James on the front riding as hard as he could and he actually cracked the jersey. He got dropped under the pressure that James was piling on.
“As soon as I looked over my shoulder and saw that there was a bit of a gap, I put in a hard dig. It was basically one big surge I put in and it got me the gap.
“From there, I just rode on to the finish making sure I didn’t make any mistakes. Once I had more than seven seconds I could relax a little bit but I could see Sherlock coming from behind so I kept the pressure on to make sure we got the stage after all the hard work that James had done.”
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Ryan Sherlock has been riding in Belgium of late and while he is a great climber, he was simply no match for the winner today (Photo: Dave Coleman - Dc Images)
While Sherlock managed to snatch second place from Davenport, overnight leader Byrne lost over a minute on the climb and all hope of overall victory.
With Ken Tobin having won the stage three criterium the day before, it's been a very successful weekend for Cycling Leinster, the team going away with two stage wins and the overall victory.
“When the team was announced, a lot of people said it looked like a really weak team because there were some guys who weren’t big names on it, but we were actually the strongest team,” said Dowling.
“Ken Tobin is really going strong. It might have been a surprise to some people that he won the crit but not to us. He's a super sprinter, is in great shape and has the experience of being a former international rider.
“Liam Dolan is an absolute horse and James Davenport... the win he had in the Stephen Roche GP showed the power he has, so with those guys, and Javan Nulty as well, who was straight back from the Europeans, I knew we had a strong team but everybody underestimated us.”
Another reason for underestimating Dowling though was his deliberate decision to avoid racing for the past few weeks in order to train for the Suir Valley event.
“I did it out of pure frustration in the end,” admitted Dowling.
“I was going well enough beforehand but just didn’t seem to have any top end. In all the races I was doing, week in, week out, I was always one of the strongest guys, always up there but wasn’t able to finish it off.
“I just didn’t have that little bit in the end to get rid of the break. I didn’t have that kick so I think it was after the race in Bunclody... (where he finished fifth) I decided I was going to forget about racing and just do a massive camp of really hard training for three and a half weeks.
“I trained every single day in the Dublin Mountains, by myself, really working on my top end and on my climbing. I forgot about racing altogether so I didn’t have to recover for the weekends."
A team mate of Dowling's on Cycling Leinster this weekend, James Davenport did great work on the final climb and looks delighted with the result for the team (Photo: Dave Coleman - Dc Images)
Dowling also said not racing possiby kept him out of sight and out of mind.
“I wanted to try and fly under the radar a little bit too. A lot of people thought ‘well he hasn’t raced, he’s not going well’. That was another part of it.
“During the race, I got up on the first day but didn’t contest any mountains points. I didn’t contest any sprints. I didn’t get up in the crit. I just did nothing. I wanted to keep my head down the whole way, right until the very last minute, which worked out well.
“It worked out in Ras Mumhan as well. I kept my head down the whole time and let everybody else do the hard racing.
“I didn’t have the legs there, because I wasn’t fit, so I just had to use my head to win the race.
“But in this race, I knew from my training that I was on the best form of my life. I knew from my power files and I had confidence in what I had done in training.
“I pretty much won the race today with my head and my teammates but the legs were there if I needed them.”
Although he admits to a ‘lull’ in the middle of his season, Dowling has now bookended his year with victory in two of the country’s biggest stage races.
“I suppose Ras Mumhan is the biggest one but to top it off with the Suir Valley 3-Day is fantastic.
“I wanted a stage win at the (An Post) Ras and I believed I could get one. When I didn’t get it I put a lot of pressure on myself before this race because I had a bit of a lull in the middle of the season.
“I said ‘if I don’t win this my entire season is a failure and if I do win it, it’s going to be my best season ever’. It was either way, so for me so to win it just made my perfect season. I’m over the moon.”
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