As anticipated, Darren Rafferty translated his superb overseas form this season into victory in the Cycling Ireland junior road race championships on Saturday. The Villeneuve Cycliste rider was fourth in the recent European junior time trial championship and used that same solo strength to reach the line one minute 53 seconds ahead of Dean Harvey (VC Glendale). Harvey’s teammate Jamie Meehan (VC Glendale) finished a further 12 seconds behind for bronze.
The result completed a superb national championships double. Rafferty won the junior time trial on Thursday and has now taken two national titles in three days. It is a step up from last year, when he won the time trial but was only 17th in the road race.
“Doing the double was a major goal,” Rafferty told the Irish Times. “I knew that it was going to be tough, because I really messed up the road race last year, the first year, and didn’t want to repeat that. I just had a shocker of a day then, I couldn’t get the legs working. I didn’t want to be in that position again, so I came into it as best prepared as I could.
“I knew the legs were there. All I could do was see how the race panned out, and it went as I thought it would. It was fairly controllable.”
The 96 kilometre race took place on a circuit at the Beehive in Co. Wicklow. Early on, Somhairle Owens Fisher (Caldwell Cycles) went clear alone and built a maximum lead of almost two minutes. This sparked off a response behind and a group of strong riders set off in pursuit. Rafferty and Harvey were first across, and were then joined by Jamie Meehan (VC Glendale), Ruairi Byrne (Orwell Wheelers) and Samuel Moloney (Greenmount Cycling Academy).
Rafferty’s performances abroad this season and Harvey’s overall victory in the Cycling Ireland National Road Series showed they were the riders to watch, and things did play out that way.
“When we hit the first climb on the longer lap, I just attacked on the long drag and the group split,” Rafferty explained. “There was seven of us in the front group, and then on the second steeper climb I attacked again. Two of us got away, me and Dean. They brought us back again on the main road, but I did the same again on the next lap. I got away solo on the steeper climb and then I was able to hold it until the finish. It went well.”
He had a minute ahead of Harvey with 20 kilometres to go and a further 40 seconds on the four chasers, namely Owens Fisher, Meehan, Byrne and Moloney. He continued to build his advantage and was almost two minutes ahead of Harvey at the finish. Meehan was closing in on his teammate, with last year’s winner Ronan O’Connor (Orwell Wheelers) finishing ahead of his teammate Ruairi Byrne for fourth.
Cycling Ireland’s national road race championships continue on Saturday afternoon with the 93 kilometre women’s road race.
Cycling Ireland national road championships
Junior road race, The Beehive, Wicklow: 1 Darren Rafferty (Villeneuve Cycliste) 96.4 kilometres in 2 hours 29 mins 12, 2 D Harvey (VC Glendale) at 1 min 53, 3 J Meehan (VC Glendale) at 2 mins 5, 4 R O’Connor (Orwell Wheelers) at 3 mins 24, 5 R Byrne (Orwell Wheelers) same time, 6 D Shine (O’Leary Stone Kanturk) at 6 mins 29
