McDunphy targeting the Tailteann

CONN McDunphy is hoping to figure strongly in this month’s Rás Tailteann International Cycle Race.

Lining out in this year’s five-day contest with EvoPro Racing – an Irish professional cycling team – the former Coláiste Cois Life, Lucan student will be looking to build on his two previous Rás experiences.

A product of Lucan Cycling Road Club, McDunphy got his first taste of Ireland’s most iconic cycle contest back in 2017 before mounting a serious challenge for the title the following year.

“2017 was a real eye[1]opener for me” recalled McDunphy.

“I was a first or second-year Under 23 rider and I got a bit of a kicking.

“I think I finished somewhere in the top 40, but, while I was competing, I wasn’t really racing to win.

“In 2018 I rode with an English Continental team call Holdsworth and I was very close to winning it.

“I was in the virtual yellow jersey on the second last stage, but then lost about a minute and a half and I was caught on the Wicklow Gap.

“I finished 11th overall, on the same time as seventh place I think” he told The Echo.

This year’s Rás will start out from Tallaght and McDunphy fully appreciates just how important it is for riders to lay down a mark early on in this competition.

“Really the first day of racing always determines what happens for the rest of the week” he pointed out.

“So with regards to what my role in the team will be, it’s really quite open until the first stage is over because I might miss a key breakaway and one of my team mates might be in it.

“They then might be two minutes ahead of everyone and it’s very hard to close two minutes in a five-day stage race.

“We have to go into it with open eyes and try not to miss anything.

“Then we can reconvene on the Wednesday evening to see where we are.

“It’s then that we’ll have a better plan as to what we’ll do in the race. “It will be an interesting start up that embankment.

“I’d say a lot of the county riders will find it very difficult.

“The saving grace going up the embankment is that there is always normally a headwind, so that neutralises it a little bit.

“I reckon it will be fast, but slower than previous starts to the Rás. “We [EvoPro] have got a stage race here in France from Friday to Sunday and then we’ll be flying back home to Ireland to compete in the Rás on Wednesday.

“So it also depends on how I come out of this race in France at the weekend.

“It’s three 180km stages and I’ll just have to try and get as much recovery as possible from as soon as the race finishes until the minute the Rás starts.”

McDunphy has enjoyed an encouraging run since linking up with the Belgium-based EvoPro team earlier in the year.

“At the start of the year it was just about getting back to the level at which we would be racing” he explained.

“With EvoPro Racing, you’re up against some of the best riders in the world most weeks.

“They’re brutal in the Belgium and Netherlands because the nature of the racing there is that as soon as you’re two or three minutes down, that’s your race over.

“You don’t finish that race, as opposed to France where if you’re two or three minutes down, you can still finish.

“But it’s good. I got into the top ten in a race in the Netherlands there about a month ago, so that was good” he said.