Third place finish for Yeats’ Matthew in Carlow time trial
WHILST the remaining season’s races come to a close, the evenings begin to close in and riders look forward to the long weekend miles of the winter, the finest youth riders of the country gathered in Carlow on the last Saturday and Sunday in August. Their mission, to use the form attained over the summer months to become national champions, the right to wear the national stripes on their jerseys for 2018.
Yeats Country Cycling Club’s very own Matthew Devins went to Carlow with high hopes and based on previous results in the last few weeks all at the club were confident he would do us all proud. The nationals were to be held over the entire weekend with the Time Trial kicking off the events followed by the Road Race and finally the Criterium on the Sunday.
Matthew was the early leader in the U15 Time Trial with a respectable clock of 11mins 43secs over the 8.5km course, in fact this was good enough to keep the current Connacht Champion Keith Mulroy out of the hot seat. Matthew saw off all competitors and was the hot seat until only the last two competitors, Johnny Foster of Bohermeen CC pushed Matthew into 2nd with a time of 11mins 37secs.
Last on the course was Tom Moriarty of Kanturk Cycling Club, a formidable force in the cycling scene, Tom finished the course in 11mins 32secs pushing Johnny to 2nd and Matthew to 3rd. All made for an exciting finish to the Time Trial Championships, Matthew the first rider to claim a national medal from Sligo in quite some time, but also adding to his tally of late.
The evening saw Matthew compete in the U15 Road Race Championship a mainly flat course of 4 x 15km laps totalling 60km altogether, there was one climb 2km long to make the difference with a downhill finish.
Matthew rode the race very well despite his earlier efforts in the morning’s Time Trial, Matthew admitted after the race he didn’t quite feel himself but soldiered on, despite his discomfort Matthew finished a very respectable 8th place out of the 50 entrants. All eyes were on him by the other riders to light up the climb on the last lap, and following his efforts in the Errigal 3 Day recently, he was been watched rather closely. However due to his discomfort with the race it wasn’t to be and the other competitors had an easier ride into the finish line.
Following an evening’s rest and recuperation, last on the weekend’s race card was the National Criterium Championships, a short course around a technical course of 1km in length, racing would be furious over 25mins and an additional 5laps in length. Matthew was in the thick of all the action and was involved in the majority of moves, it was clear that he had recovered well over the night from the previous days TT & Road Race.
After furious racing, and no rider getting clear for any prolonged period of time, it wasn’t until 3 laps from the finish that Tom Moriarty got a substantial gap on the chasing pack. Matthew was first rider to attempt to bridge across to Tom but his bid failed, following this he tried to orchestrate a chase group to pull in Tom’s charge for the chequered flag, however the other riders only worried about keeping energy for the final sprint.
Because of their reluctance to chase down the lone rider, Tom managed to stay away from the bunch to take the flag and the National title. The bunch sprint for 2nd was taken by Ryan Geraghty of BikeWorks Dublin and Matthew pipped for 3rd place by Cathal Gallagher of Errigal CC Donegal.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend for Matthew, despite being pipped off the podium in the final race. Matthews’s results for the weekend were 3rd in the Time Trial, 8th in the Road Race and 4th in the Criterium, we at Yeats Country Cycling Club are very proud of this young man’s efforts and predict great things to come in the future.
Matthew would like to extend his thanks to his personal sponsor Gary Rooney of Gary’s Cycles Sligo who sponsored him a bike, and club sponsors The Riverside Hotel Sligo & Callan Tansey Solicitors Sligo.