Olympic team pursuit rider Mia Griffin turned her track speed to the road on Wednesday, sprinting to a fine victory on the opening stage of Rás na mBan.
The Kilkenny rider led in a Das Hutchinson Brother UK one-two-three, finishing ahead of her British team-mate Robyn Clay and the Irish rider Caoimhe O’Brien.
The win follows on from her victories last year on stages one and four, and sees her take the first leader’s jersey of the race.
“I am really happy to be back in Kilkenny,” the 25-year-old said. “I liked this stage last year. My goal was to come into that corner fast and just sprint to the line as hard as I could.”
The 75km race ran from Kilkenny to Callan. The peloton split on the day’s categorised climb of Curragawn, with Griffin’s team-mate Frankie Hall, fellow Briton Katy Hill (Dan Morrissey-Primor by Pissei) and Danish rider Freederikke Aafeldt (Team Aalborg) breaking clear afterwards.
Their lead grew to 55 seconds but they were hauled back with 3km to go, after which Griffin’s team worked to set her up for the sprint.
“For quite some time Frankie was up the road and we thought that she was going to stay away. So we were trying to slow things down in the bunch,” Griffin said.
“In the end it came back together. We all worked together as a team so good. Then we got one, two, three on the podium. I think that is pretty sweet, really happy with that.”
The time bonus at the line sees her four seconds clear of Clay in the overall standings, with O’Brien six seconds back.
The international race continues on Thursday with a 105km stage starting in Portlaoise, heading into the Slieve Bloom mountains and finishing in Mountrath. It runs until Sunday.
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