"I do my winter interval training with lights on on this course so it's great to win here"

UCD's Eoin Morton wins the Ben McKenna Memorial ahead of teammate Greg Swinand after the duo had left the rest of the race for dead on the final lap (Photo: Amy Norah Farrell)

By Gerard Cromwell

Having spent most of his domestic career training on part of the circuit, Eoin Morton of UCD Cycling Team was delighted with victory at the Ben McKenna Memorial in Balbriggan yesterday.

“It’s a great race to win,” said Morton shortly after he crossed the line ahead of teammate Greg Swinand to claim his first win of the season atop Knockbrack Hill.

“I live about 5km away in Swords, so it’s basically my home race, the closest race to my house.

"I cycled out today and it’s nice to be able to win where you do your intervals at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night with lights on. On that main road, every day, that’s where I do most of my training, so it’s great to win here.”

The current Leinster road race champion, Morton was part of a three man escape group which included Swinand and Javan Nulty of DID Dunboyne and went clear midway through the 135km race.

The trio worked tirelessly to build up a maximum lead of two and a half minutes on a main field patrolled by the rest of the UCD squad.

“Myself, Greg and Javan went away on the main road just before the hill with four laps to go," said Morton.

"Going up the climb, we just rode steadily and got a decent gap. Obviously, the lads behind were helping hugely because they were covering everything that moved.”

“We were told we had two and a half minutes to the next group so it was happy days and we were keeping it steady until, going up the hill second last time, we were told we had 50 seconds to a group of four and we had to put on the gas.”

The evergreen Swinand was first to stomp on the pedals on the slope with Morton following suit, but Nulty who had been aggressive throughout the race, and earned the Patrick Rowe Memorial Trophy for combativity for his efforts, was left to be swallowed up by the chasers.

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“I got Greg’s wheel and Javan was blown,” said Morton.

“We just kept it rolling as hard as we could. When we got down the descent we had 40 seconds and, with four chasers against two, we thought we were going to have it rough enough trying to stay clear.

"But Anto (Walsh) was sitting on the back of them so that sort of stopped the dynamic of their group working a bit and helped us.”

With the finish line in sight and victory apparent, all that was left to do for the duo was decided who would cross the line first, and with Swinand having been given the nod in a UCD one, two, three at the recent Newbridge Grand Prix, it was payback time for Morton.

“Myself and Greg kept working all the way and we had a conversation coming to the line. After Greg getting the win in Newbridge, it was decided I’d take the win here. I didn’t have to ask, Greg just said ‘take it’.”

Although UCD have taken numerous podiums and placings thus far this season, environmental science master Morton’s victory is only the students' second of the year but he hopes it’s a sign of things to come.

“It’s nice the way the team is working at the moment, we’ve a big team but it’s working really well. We’re all really good mates. We train together every day and we see each other every day."

"We’ve a good few podiums this season but this is only our second win. We were kind of relying on Walshie and Greg so far but now hopefully the form starts to come for everybody else in the group and we can step up.”