Lavery takes up Rás option

Philip Lavery, one of Ireland’s most exciting young riders, will be in the line-up for this weekend’s FBD Insurance Rás after all.

It was initially expected the 19-year-old Dubliner, currently riding for the LOOK Academy in Belgium, would join the Irish team for next week’s showpiece but it was felt that it might be too close to the Nations Cup race in Canada which takes place four days after the finish of the Rás.

However, he now feels that he is in shape to ride the Rás as well and that it will in fact help his preparations for that race. He believes if it is ridden correctly, the race is an excellent way to bring on top racing condition.

“The Rás is fine once you are in the bunch even though it’s a hard race,” he said. “If you ride it properly, you come out of it very fresh, with eight days of great training you won’t get anywhere else.

“I decided maybe a week ago that the legs were probably in good enough shape to do the Rás and then to go to Canada. There are four days between the two races and I will fly out to Canada the day after the Rás finishes.”

In March he won the Kruiseke-Wervik race in Belgium and placed 35th in the ZLM Tour Under 23 Nations Cup event when he was in the group sprinting for tenth place.

Two weeks later he won a stage and placed third overall in the Tour of Ulster and earlier this month he was second behind double FBD Rás champion, Chris Newton, in the Lincoln Grand Prix in England.

If he can reproduce that form next week when he will ride for the Dublin Murphy & Gunn/Newlynn team then he will be competing for Stage victories.

“I am just going to pick a few days where I will have a go,” he said. “A stage win would be a goal, or maybe see how the General Classification works out. But I’m not going to put pressure on myself as regards the overall.”

Last year, it will be remembered, Sam Bennett, who was then just 18 years of age, was in the top 10 in six of the eight stages and won the penultimate stage of the Rás into Tullamore.

The young Carrick-on-Suir man, now riding for VC La Pomme in Marseilles, has made a complete recovery from an horrific crash while out training in December and last Sunday he won the final stage in the Rhone Alpes Isere Tour — a UCI 2.2 event.

He misses this year’s Rás but will ride the Under-23 version of the Paris-Roubaix before he, too, goes to Canada for the Under-23 Nations Cup as will Connor McConvey, who rides for the An Post/Sean Kelly team next week.

This year’s FBD Insurance Ras will start on Sunday in Dunboyne and features stage finishes in Dundalk, Carrick-on-Shannon, Oughterard, Tipperary, Seskin Hill/Carrick-on-Suir, Gorey and Kilcullen before finishing in Skerries on Sunday week.

Tim Barry, winner of this year’s Ras Mumhan will rejoin his old team mates at Tipperary Dan Morrissey for next year’s Ras.

Tralee man, Paul Griffin, joins the team and John Dempsey who won Ras Mumhan with Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers, also returns to the fold to ride alongside teak tough Rory Wyley, who is President of Cycling Ireland those days, and Andrew Aherne who outsprinted Sean Lacey to win the Mick Cahill Memorial in Banteer earlier this year.

Article courtesy of The Irish Examiner