An Post Rás – Stage One for Irish Team
The Irish team competed in stage one of the An Post Rás today. With a fantastic festival atmosphere kicking off the eight day stage race, the young team rode well with Eddie Dunbar finishing tenth on the line. Irish Team Manager David McCann was pleased with the opening day saying “The guys rode conservatively today, but when the selection came, Eddie forged ahead, and finished in 10th place. Ronan rode well to ride across to a group early on in the race, but Matt and Chris got caught up in one of the many crashes in the race. There were about three or four big crashes involving 20-30 people. Lucky they are okay, but Matt had to have a bike change, his bike broke. Mark rode well, nicely placed in the middle of the bunch.”
The mixed weather on the stage didn’t faze the team; “the weather was changeable today, at one point there was heavy hail, coming into the second moto sprint; you could barely see the line.”
This is the first time that Ireland has entered a team in the Rás since 2011, and this team is a primarily U23 team, with one experienced senior team captain. Multiple Olympian David McCann is the team manager for the prestigious 8 day UCI stage race.
More about the TEAM HERE
More about the stage with FULL RESULTS to come shortly
TEAM:
Ronan McLaughlin
Edward Dunbar
Matthew Teggart
Mark Downey
Chris McGlinchey