Grace Young added another win to her tally for the season at the Leinster Cyclocross Series yesterday.
However, the Strata 3-VeloRevolution rider very nearly came a cropper as she celebrated her win.
She almost crashed while giving her two-armed victory salute but just managed to save herself; avoiding falling or colliding with the official waving the chequered flag.
Young had pulled ahead of the opposition early in the
race, holding a slim lead on junior riders Caoimhe May (Scott Orwell) and Lucy
O’Donnell (Verge-Pi Cycles).
However, by the third lap of five international rider O’Donnell had distanced May and caught leader Young.
On the penultimate lap O’Donnell suffered a problem with
her bike and the gap between herself and Young went out again.
From that point the lone leader kept powering away and
had enough in the tank to take the win by about 20 seconds from O’Donnell.
Advertisement
Asia Bula (Scott Donnybrook) finished 3rd after being fourth rider for a long time before catching and passing Caoimhe May on the last couple of laps.
May did enough to claim 4th place and that meant she took
overall victory in the series from Bula and Stephanie Roche (Scott Donnybrook).
Related News
Annie Roche (Scott-Donnybrook) claimed the U16 race on the day and also won the overall in the U16 Leinster series.
In the men’s race, Paul O’Reilly (Dan Morrissey-MIG-Pactimo) continued his strong season with another win.
He had pulled clear with Niall Davis (Biking.ie) and Sean
Nolan (Navan Road Club) early in the contest before proving too strong for them
later in the race.
However, while Nolan slipped back to 3rd and was then
caught and overtaken by Robin Seymour (Team Worc), the Navan rider’s 4th place
was enough to secure the series title.
In the early stages it was Nolan who took it up and the
pace he applied effectively saw him pull clear with O’Reilly and Davis.
However, Nolan paid for his efforts later when he lost
contact with the other two and was chased hard by Seymour.
Indeed, with about two laps remaining Seymour had not
only caught Nolan and distanced him, he was closing in on O’Reilly and Davis.
But the two leaders found an extra gear over the last couple of laps to open the gap once more on Seymour before O’Reilly dropped Davis to win solo.
Seymour came home for 3rd place, Nolan placed 4th and
Timmy O’Regan (Team Worc), who was in contention for the overall, placed 5th.
Topics
