Eddie Dunbar has announced himself onto the U23 international stage with a 'Roy of the Rovers' style ride at Le Cote de Picardie Nations Cup race in France today.
Eddie Dunbar has delivered the performance of his career this afternoon in his debut U23 Nations Cup event, riding out front solo for around 110km in the Le Cote de Picardie in France.
A junior last year, Dunbar was part of a patched-up five-man Irish team for today’s encounter following the enforced withdrawals of Ryan Mullen and Eoin McCarthy.
Also on the start line today for Ireland were Sean McKenna, Daniel Stewart, Jack Wilson and Javan Nulty.
Young Cork man Dunbar attacked the peloton around 40 kilometres into the 180 kilometre event and immediately got away; the bunch either unwilling or unable to go with the Irish junior national road and time-trial title winner.
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Within a couple of kilometres Dunbar’s lead had swelled to over a minute as the peloton put the brakes on and watched the Irishman disappear up the road.
And from there his margin only increased minute by minute.
One rider, Federico Vivas from Argentina, went off in pursuit of Dunbar.
But he was no match for the Kanturk man, who kept up a phenomenal tempo at the head of affairs.
Dunbar’s long-range attacks are nothing new to Irish fans and followers of stickybottle will need no reminding of the number of times he attacked A3 and junior bunches last year and won on his own at a canter.
But today’s field was stacked with world class track and road riders, not least Saturday’s winner in Flanders, Alex Edmondson of Australia.
Unsurprisingly, it was his team that did much of the chasing, keen to bring Dunbar back to set up one of their own, with former An Post Rás stage winner and yellow jersey winner Robert Jon McCarthy another one of their big hitters.
Still, they had their work cut out at 90 kilometres to go as Dunbar still held a lead of over seven minutes on the peloton and two chasers, after Gregoriy Shtein of Kazakhstan joined Vivas.
The latter was obviously gassed from his efforts chasing Dunbar and dropped off the back of Shtein who went off in pursuit of Dunbar.
With 50 kilometres to go the gap was more manageable, with Dunbar now holding onto a four minute lead on the peloton.
Two more chasers emerged in the form of Massimo Morabito (Luxembourg) and another Argentine, Juan Curuchet.
They replaced the former chasing pair of Shtein and Vivas, clearly showing how good Dunbar was today.
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With two new men now chasing the Irishman, they were joined by Jonas Koch from Germany, making it three chasing the leader in the Irish jersey.
As the bunch closed in on Dunbar and the trio not far behind him, that chasing group caught the Irish man with exactly 30km to go.
The peloton, with France and Italy now joining the Australian team at the head of affairs, were just over 30 seconds down at that stage.
However, while it was clear the game was up for the breakaway, nobody told Dunbar.
Despite having spent over 100km alone, when Koch attacked the four-man breakaway, Dunbar went with him and pulled out a small lead on Morabito (Luxembourg) and Curuchet (Argentina), who were then swallowed by the peloton.
With 25km remaining, Dunbar and Koch were still out front just 15 seconds ahead of the bunch on the finishing circuit.
Incredibly, the two leaders dug in and managed to pull out the gap to 20 seconds, only surrendering with 18km remaining.
It meant Dunbar headed the race solo for 110km and with company for a further 12km; an astonishing ride, especially considering he is a first-year U23 rider.
The race was eventually won by Simone Consonni of Italy from British rider Owain Doull and Daniel Hoelgaard of Norway.
We’ll bring you news of the Irish team’s finishing positions when we have it.
Provisional Top 10
1 Simone Consonni (Italy)
2 Owain Doull (Great Britain)
3 Daniel Hoelgaard (Norway)
4 Yoan Verardo (France)
5 Aksel Nommela (Estonia)
6 Mads Pedersen (Denmark)
7 Colin Joyce (United States)
8 Jan Dieteren (Germany)
9 Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz (Poland)
10 Lucas Gaday (Argentina)
