Killian O'Brien (right) on the podium at the National Championships
Pinergy - Orwell Wheelers had a stellar weekend at the National Championships in Limerick, with Killian O'Brien winning Bronze in Men's Junior Road Race, Aine Reilly taking eighth in the Women's Junior Race and Patrick O'Sullivan taking 11th in the Men's Junior Race.
The Junior men's race had a large field with over a dozen riders in with a realistic pop at the podium. It was raced super-hard from the start: the first break went after 2km and within ten minutes half the field had been dropped!
Killian O'Brien (now riding in the colours of Veleka) was in the break, which got caught at the end of the first of four laps. A second break developed half way through lap two, with seven riders (again including Killian) getting across in small groups to form the break of the day. They rode hard to break the resistance of the peloton, who were leaning very heavily on pre-race favourites Seth Dunwoody, Conor Murphy and David Gaffney to do all the chasing.
With a lap to go the gap was two minutes and that fight was won. Eventual winner Patrick Casey (Auto Edar) put in a single brilliantly-timed attack on a drag and the group couldn't organise a chase. His gap grew as the others thought about the podium. Killian recognised Sam Coleman as the strongest sprinter in the group and ensured he had his wheel as they rounded the final corner, securing a strong third place and his first national medal.
Patrick O'Sullivan rode in the remains of the bunch and broke off the front of the pack before the finish to claim 11th place.
Terry Reilly, Aine Reilly and Rás na mBan director Valerie Considine at the National Championships.
In the Women's Junior race, Aine Reilly had one of her best races to date. While it was a great circuit, unfortunately it did start on a hill and with the Junior Women just doing 2 laps of the circuit the eventual race winner wasn’t taking any chances and blew the race to pieces on the first climb.
Aine worked hard along with one other and managed to regain her rightful position in the bunch as part of a 5 rider chasing group trying to close down 5 leaders. With 10km to go Aine used her descending skills to try to break free from the chasing bunch and while she got a good gap, the run into the finish was a draggy road that meant a solo effort was going to be futile so she waited for the bunch to catch her and took her chances in the bunch sprint for the minor places and came 3rd in that to finish 8th overall. All in all, a great performance from Aine and great to be part of history, being the biggest field of Junior Women racing in Ireland to date.
Patrick O'Sullivan, ready for action at the start of the National Championships.
