Zippy Doyle just misses biggest of scalps as Robin Seymour prevails in St Anne's duel

Eventual winner and series leader Robin Seymour is shadowed by Zippy Doyle during their battle for supremacy in St Anne's Park, Raheny, north Dublin, yesterday (Photo: Gareth Gibbons)

The winner of yesterday’s round 4 of the Fixx Coffeehouse Series in St Anne’s Park, Dublin, may have been Robin Seymour with another powerful closing surge that overwhelmed the opposition, but the day perhaps belonged to comeback man Anthony ‘Zippy’ Doyle who put in the off-road ride of his life to take 2^nd place.

Doyle pushed Seymour closer than any other rider in country in recent years, with the exception of current cyclocross champion Roger Aiken. And while he was denied what would have been a famous win, he can look forward to being in with a real chance of scalping the aforementioned duo before this winter campaign is out.

He was 5^th in the National Cyclocross Championships two years ago – a race run on the same Raheny course as yesterday – before a break from the sport followed.

And having come back this year, his form has built to the kind of peak that could see him make the podium in this season’s national title race early in the New Year.

While the other strong men of the Leinster scene so far this year gave good accounts of themselves yesterday – Ray O’Shaughnessy of Cuchulainn taking 3^rd, Evan Ryan of Team WORC 4^th and Bray strongman Sean O’Tuathail 5^th – this contest was all about the duel that emerged between Seymour and Doyle.

It was the latter who got by far the better of the early exchanges, with Doyle whipping around the opening lap in a time of 9 in 7mins 23secs, some 8 seconds quicker than Seymour.

However, Seymour put in a blistering lap 2 to claw back all of the deficit, which saw both riders come through the start-finish area on the same time to commence lap 3.

By that stage they had already pulled a gap out on the best of the rest, with Ryan in 3^rd spot five seconds back, O’Shaughnessy in 4^th a further 3 seconds adrift and O’Tuathail in 5th, some 37 seconds off the leaders.

From that point the two out front sparred closely the whole way and extended their lead on their closest challengers on every lap.

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Seymour clocked a 7:18 on lap 3 to take out a 1 second advantage on Doyle, with the pair both completing lap 4 on exactly the same time of 7:22. On lap 5 it was Doyle who nicked the 1 second deficit back when he went around in 7:23 to Seymour’s 7:24.

And on laps 6 and 7 the leading pair stayed together, building their lead out front on the others and clocking exactly the same times; 7:30 and 7:19 respectively.

But despite a fantastic effort by the rejuvenated Doyle, class will out and on the penultimate lap Seymour upped it a couple of clicks. He whipped around in 7:15, equaling the fastest lap time for the race he had already set on lap 2 when recovering from his poor start.

That left him 10 seconds ahead of Doyle taking the bell, with the gap extended by a further 11 seconds on the final lap; Seymour clocking 2:23 to Doyle’s 7:34.

That surge on the final two circuits saw Seymour emerge the winner  by 22 seconds, but having been pushed very hard all the way by Doyle. Another 1min 40secs would elapse before O’Shaughnessy crossed the line to round out the podium.

Evan Ryan was just 1 second back in 4^th place and O’Tuathail another 39 seconds down in 5^th.

A total of 44 riders signed on for the A race, with 29 completing all nine laps in what proved to be a very exciting contest.

Fixx Coffeehouse Supercross Series

Sun, Dec 1st, Round 4, St Anne's Park, Raheny

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Details on www.neenan.travel/cycling
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