CYCLING IRISH ROAD RACE CHAMPIONSHIPS: SIOBHAN DERVAN will today aim to take her fifth consecutive title on day one of the Irish cycling road race championships in Dunboyne.

The 30-year-old Corkwoman hasn’t raced abroad this year with her professional Fenixs team as she was finishing final exams, but said that she was quietly confident despite having to prepare at home.

“I’m not sure how exactly I am going. I was studying a lot this year, racing once a week and training when I could,” she stated.

“But I’ve been training a good bit for the past month. I don’t think I am in the condition I was at last year’s world championships [where she was 24th], but I’d say that I am going as well as I was at last year’s national championship.”

That may well be good enough. Twelve months ago she dominated the women’s race, attacking with over one lap to go of the Glounthaune course and hitting the line two minutes and 24 seconds ahead of Louise Moriarty (Swift Racing/UCD) and bronze medallist Heather Wilson (Maryland Wheelers).

Dervan intends the nationals to be the start of a big push towards the worlds.

“I got confirmation earlier this week that I’ll be doing the Giro Donne, the women’s Giro d’Italia, again. It starts on July 3rd and I’ll try to race into it, building form.”

Her biggest challenger in today’s 83 kilometre race may end up being Olivia Dillon, the US-based Irishwoman who finished fifth in the road race last year but won the time trial title.

She has shown strong form this season, finishing fourth in stage five of Nature Valley Grand Prix earlier this month and netting placings of fifth and sixth in May’s Tour of the Gila.

Meanwhile Martin O’Loughlin (Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers) will attempt to take his third consecutive title in today’s 104-kilometre veterans’ championships. Tomorrow’s races will see the elite, under-23 and junior medals being settled.