CYCLING NEWS ROUND-UP:IRISH RIDER Philip Deignan showed his strong climbing ability on yesterday's mountainous sixth stage of the Tour of Switzerland, going clear in an 11-man breakaway group on the first climb of the day and later forging ahead on the ascent to the finish at Verbier.
He and Gerolsteiner rider Mathias Frank shed the other nine riders in the move and made their bid for a stage victory, only to be caught and passed by the main race favourites with approximately four kilometres remaining.
Kim Kirchen (Team High Road) took the victory plus the overall race lead, while Deignan finished two minutes and 14 seconds back in 26th place. He is 49th overall heading into today's stage. However, he got a valuable psychological boost due to his performance, which once again shows his climbing ability.
"It was a hard day with the headwind in the valley and also the break didn't work too well," he said. "If we had built a bigger lead we could perhaps have stayed clear until the line."
The Letterkenny rider said that he may try to get into another break before the race ends on Sunday, and that he will go flat out in the previous day's mountain time trial.
He was confirmed earlier this week as one of the riders who will represent Ireland in the Olympic Games road race, with Nicolas Roche taking the other slot. Neither are due to ride the Tour de France; Roche had hoped to secure a place on the Crédit Agricole Tour team via a strong ride in the Swiss race but was forced to miss the start when he came down with flu last week.
Both will ride the Irish national road race championships on Sunday week and will then rely on a mountain training camp to build condition. The 23-year-old said that he was excited about the prospect of racing in Beijing. "I am very happy about the Olympics, it's a relief knowing that I'm definitely going," he told The Irish Timesyesterday. "I have worked hard in these last few months and I can't wait to get there."
In other news, a Navan Avonmore squad finished an excellent second overall in the four-man teams competition at the prestigious Race Across America. Stephen McManmon, Alan Duffy, Colm Laverty and Adrian McNally covered the 3,014 mile distance in six days four hours and 17 minutes, just two hours and five minutes off the pace set by the winners UTAG Yamaha.com.
This broke the Irish record of seven days 12 hours 40 minutes set in 2005. The team was managed by former Cycling Ireland president PJ Nolan, coached by Pádraig Marrey and had Alan Heary as director and motivator.
To women's cycling and it has been announced that this year's Rás na mBan will be sponsored by the Sneem Hotel and will be held in the Sneem area of Kerry between Friday the 12th and Sunday, September 14th.
It will comprise three road race stages and one time-trial, and feature competitors from Ireland and overseas.
Finally, a number of races will enable Irish riders to fine-tune their preparation for next weekend's national road race championships.
These include the Paddy Flanagan two-day race in Newbridge this weekend, the Irish criterium championships in Ormeau Park on Wednesday and the Stephen Roche GP in Dundrum's Meadowmount estate the same evening.
The latter event will feature sprint primes from the second until the 25th of the 28th laps, with five double-value primes sponsored by Winning Solutions.
FIXTURES
Friday-Sunday: Autoline 3 Day, Newry. Saturday-Sunday: Paddy Flanagan 2 Day, Newbridge. Saturday: IVCA TT championships, Enfield. Starts 9.15am. Track training, Sundrive Road. Starts 11 am. Sunday: John Drum Memorial, Currow; NI 40km TT championships, Woodgreen. Starts 9am; IVCA DMS, Clane Road. Starts 9.15am.
