Rory Townsend happy he stuck at it as perseverance pays off

Go back to the nationals last year and he was contemplating stepping back from all this, such were the financial strains of running up that hill year after year

Wed, 10 Aug, 2022 - 07:00

Brendan O'Brien

The calendar year wasn’t half done when Rory Townsend crossed the finishing line in Kanturk and claimed a maiden Irish National road title, but to look at the papers the next day was to suspect that we had already peaked in terms of sport and raw emotion in this year of 2022.

Bryan Keane, an Olympic triathlete in Rio six years ago, captured the moment for the Inpho agency, one of his shots freezing the 27-year old for eternity with fist clenched and eyes closed just as the magnitude of the achievement and the difficulty of the road travelled washed over him.