Sunday brought plenty of drama and lots of hard fought racing in the Irish Senior National Road Race Championships with the Elite Men, U23’s and Elite Women’s blazing through the streets of Wexford. Ryan Mullen (Cannondale Drapac) took the title in the Senior Men’s Race ahead of Chris McGlinchey (Chain Reaction Cycles) and Conor Dunne (Aqua Blue Sport). The Elite Women’s Race was won by Lydia Boylan (Team WNT).
The Elite Women’s race was first to leave the HQ at 10AM. The race was fought quite conservatively with a good pace set and a few riders getting dropped every lap. No break got managed to get away until on the last lap when Lydia Boylan got a nine second gap which was 15 seconds by the time she reached the line. Lauren Creamer (NCC Group – Kuota – Torrel) won silver, with Ellen McDermott (EDCO Continental) taking bronze.
Delighted with her solo win Boylan, known for her bunch sprint, said – “I always thought there’s nothing better than winning solo so I thought I’d go hell for leather on the climb, and see what happened. I could see they weren’t gaining, then 1km to go came, and 300m came.”
The Elite men’s race was aggressively fought with attacks from the start through to the end. The field split up by a large margin early on with the top riders in the lead.
In the last lap, a small group of three broke from the lead bunch. Ryan Mullen crossed the line solo, taking gold with Chris McGlinchey taking silver and Conor Dunne following up with the bronze.
Mullen added gold today to the title he won in the Time Trial last Thursday saying - “I didn’t expect today one bit, after two or three laps I was thinking of coming into the ditch and calling it a day. I’m racing in the Tour of Austria next week so I get some sick new kit!”
The U23s were incorporated into the Senior Men’s race and Michael O’Loughlin rode hard to take gold, Angus Fyffe grabbed silver and Ryan Reilly followed up with Bronze.
“It was pretty tough but it worked out in the end, I had to work very hard. It took a long time for the breaks to go and the last three or four were so tough. If the finish line was there with 5km to go the results would have been different, my legs were hanging off me coming into the line.”
This year was the inaugural year of the Women’s Masters Race which was incorporated in the Elite Women’s Race. The podium was dominated by De Ronde van Cork CC, with Sinnead Oakes taking home gold with sliver belonging to Grace Young and bronze to Nessa Rochford.
The Cork rider was delighted with how the race panned out - “It was a pretty tough race, the first few laps were cagey and watching each other and it was fairly quiet in the flat sections, as soon as we got to the climbs everyone started to dig, particularly on the Ferrycarrig killer, as we call it.”
This brought to an end the 2017 National Road Senior Road Championships, with thanks to the event organisers Wexford Cycling.
Ryan Mullen, Cannondale - Drapac, in action at the National Cycling Road Race Championships in Wexford.
RESULTS:
Women’s Elite:
Gold Lydia Boylan (Team WNT)
Silver Lauren Creamer (NCC Group – Kuota – Torrel)
Bronze Ellen McDermott (EDCO Continental)
Men’s Elite:
Gold Ryan Mullen (Cannondale Drapac)
Silver Christopher McGlinchey (Chain Reaction Cycles)
Bronze Conor Dunne (Aqua Blue Sport)
U23 Men:
Gold Michael O’Loughlin (Team Wiggins)
Silver Angus Fyffe (Omagh Wheelers CC)
Bronze Ryan Reilly (Amicale Cycliste Biso)
