Murtagh takes his chance in style with sprint win in Harry Reynolds

No mistaking the winner: Eugene Murtagh was just too strong up the finishing straight

Eugene Murtagh (Lucan Staggs) pulled off a great win in the Harry Reynolds Memorial in Balbriggan this afternoon, taking the bunch sprint that settled the race after the A1 riders failed to close down a relatively small handicap.

Murtagh beat Colm Bracken (Murphy Surveys) and Eoin Deegan (Eurocyles) in a sprint to the line from a bunch of around 80 riders in north Co Dublin. The winner had plenty to spare over the rest of the field and savoured what was a great win in fantastic sunny race conditions.

The handicap event was open to A1/A2/A3/A4 riders, with each group going off separately just one minute apart. But while the A2s mopped up the two groups ahead of them to set it up for a bunch gallop, the A1 riders never got on terms.

While there was a relatively small group of only around a dozen A1 riders, their failure to close down what was a pretty small gap was surprising, particularly because the group featured some of the in-form riders so far this year including the likes of Ryan Sherlock (Cycleways) and Stephen Halpin (Metaltek SCOTT).

With the top tier failing to get on terms it blew the race wide open, with Murtagh the strongest in the uphill charge to the finish near Ardgillan after seven laps of the 7.2km Man O’ War circuit.