TOUR OF THE NORTH CYCLING CROWN
belfasttelegraph.co.uk
The final stage of the P&O Irish Sea Tour of the North International cycle race saw an epic display from the impressive Philip Lavery of the Cycling Ulster–David McCall Foundation-Slane Cycles team in the Glens of Antrim yesterday to clinch the overall crown.
The 20-year-old who won the opening two stages but lost the race lead on Easter Sunday began yesterday's stage at Ballymena over one minute down on Yellow Jersey holder Hamish Haynes of V.C. Ecosse.
Lavery attacked from the drop of the flag and was joined by Australian Dean Windsor (Rapha Condor) and Martyn Irvine (Planet X).
With 70 miles to cover including three major climbs in the Glens it seemed a futile last ditch stand but the trio worked well and built up a three-minute lead over the rest of the field.
Irvine took maximum points on the first two climbs at Shanes Hill and Ballyvaddy ensuring that he would win the King of the Hills competition but faded on the final climb of Glenariff and dropped back to the main group.
Windsor and Lavery continued on into a fierce headwind in the final 12 mile run-in to the finish.
The gap started to come down and although they were in no danger of being caught, Lavery needed to pull back one minute and 19 seconds if he was to emege victorious overall.
Windsor took the stage victory crossing the line just ahead of the Ulster rider and there were anxious moments as the clock ticked away before the main peleton arrived.
Rapha Condor's Matt Cronshaw led in the main field containing the "Yellow Jersey" Haynes at 1-37 giving Lavery the Overall GC win by a mere 18 seconds.
There was some superb riding from Lavery's team-mates, especially Conor McAllister from Glenarm who sacrificed his chances for a podium placing with his intelligent riding.
He only needed to gain two seconds to move into third place overall but refused to help the chase thus giving Lavery every chance of overall success.
Ulster team rider-manager Ryan Connor, a triple winner of this race, was delighted with the result.
"This was an overall team effort and the tactics worked to perfection. Tommy Wilson was appointed manager for the race as I was riding and he did a superb job," he said.
"All the lads, Conor McAllister, Jonny Cole and Simon Williams played their part and we couldn't have achieved this result without them."
Connor went on to thank the David McCall Cycling Foundation, established in memory of the Lisburn rider who was killed tragically during a cycle race at Nutts Corner last year and Slane Cycles, Belfast who backed the team.
