Soloing in to a finish line less than a kilometre from both his house and the one where he grew up, local rider Martin O’Loughlin took his first ever individual national title on Saturday when he won the veterans’ road race championship.

The Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers rider was part of a breakaway group in the race and attacked strongly on the Carney’s Road climb on the last of four laps. O’Loughlin hit the line 1 minute 30 seconds ahead of a group containing silver medallist Sean Bracken (Usher IRC) and Andre Engermann (St. Tiernans).

The sprint for second...

...goes to Bracken

Engermann gets bronze.

“It is great to win this,” the schoolteacher said after receiving the national champion’s jersey. “Coming in the road I have been training on for the past 27 years was something special, and so too knowing that I could soft pedal for the last three or four miles.

“I expected to do well today because of the level I have been racing at for the past 11 years and also the fact that I am one of the youngest vets in the country. I wanted to win my championship before Rory Wyley [senior 1 team-mate] turns vet next year!”

More riders finish

He explained his tactics, saying that he set out to chip away at his opponents’ reserves. “It is a very, very tough course and we were doing four laps of that. So my tactics were just to make it as hard as possible. Every time on the hill I set a hard tempo to wear fellows down. I was in the leading group on the last lap and just gave it everything the final time up the hill. I got a minute and half and then kept it going.

“It’s actually the first individual all Ireland I have won. I took a few team titles in time trials and on the road, but I’ve never won the individual before.”

Martin O'Loughlin

The location of the race adds to his satisfaction, and so too the fact that he had some special support. “My parents live on the run in to the finish and they are here today. They bought me my first bike back in 1980, paying 230 pounds for it. That was a lot of money for a Mercian back then. It is good to see that I’ve repayed that now!”

Runner up Sean Bracken won the Irish championships in 2001, 2002 and 2003. “I was fifth last year and ninth or tenth the year before,” he said, “so I am happy to back up there again. I am 47 in a few weeks and was starting to think I was on the way down!”

Sean Bracken

“It was a great course, a lot of coming and going and a hard bunch of 50 or 60.”

56 riders started the race and he gave details of how the action unfolded: “On the first lap two fellows went away, Seamus Kelly and Tommy Wilson. On the second lap four of us got across to them on the hill…Laurent Dumoulin, myself, Sean McIlroy and another rider. On the top of the hill two more got across to us – Martin O’Loughlin and Andre Engermann. That meant there were eight of us together starting the third lap.

“However, about two or three miles into that lap, a group of about ten or eleven came back up to us. That meant there were about eighteen or nineteen of us hitting the hill the third time. There were a few splits on the climb and Martin jumped away again. He was wound in at the top. Just after Sky Hill, the big drag on the main road, six got away. Myself and Sean Gray were chasing and we got across starting the fourth lap.”

Bracken said that the group was made up of the first seven past the finish line, plus Gray. However the latter lost his place in the group when his chain dropped off and then he cramped.

“Martin attacked us at the viewing place before the main climb but we got back up to him,” he continued. “He attacked us twice on the main climb, and the second time we couldn’t hold him. That had Martin on his own going over the top of the climb and six of us about a minute back. Nothing happened until Sky Hill, I got away with a Wexford fellow there [Conor O’Crualaoich]. He is only racing a year and a half or so but he is strong.

“About three miles later he got dropped and Engermann got across to me with a Carrick fellow sitting on. The others then got back up, so there were six of us sprinting for second. I went with about 300 to go and that was it.”

St. Tiernan’s club rider Engermann is a first year veteran and made a good debut in taking bronze. He felt that the winner played it well, in terms of tactics. “Martin O’Loughlin was being marked very, very heavily each lap but I think he was actually bluffing during the race. He was making these massive attacks, going maybe 40 seconds up the road and being caught again. Every time we went around the hairpin turn at the start of hill he attacked. The last time he attacked twice as hard and fast as before, so he was clearly holding something back until the end. He must have been bluffing during the race because he fooled all of us. He went the last time and didn't come back.

First year vet Andre Engermann

“He actually dropped off the back of the group to have a chat with one of the motorbike drivers and then went in what must have been a 53 x 12 on the hill!”

“The idea was to force everyone else to ride hard,” confirmed O’Loughlin. “If they were as tired as I was coming into the last lap, I felt confident that I would be stronger on the hill.”

Engermann explained the final few kilometres. “Sean Bracken and myself got away after that. Leslie O’Donnell was sitting on us, not working because Martin was up the road. I told him to work with us because we weren't going to get Martin back, but he wouldn't do so. We got caught again and it came to a sprint finish.

“Sean got second. He was going very well today. He hasn't really been going well all year, but he was savagely strong today.”




O’Loughlin’s victory plus the fifth place of O’Donnell and Sean McIlroy’s 13th saw him take another prize; for the fourth year running, the Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers club took the team award.

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Irish road race championships.

Day two, Carrick on Suir. Veterans (4 laps)

1, Martin O’Loughlin (Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers) 108 kilometres in 3 hours 3 mins
2, Sean Bracken (Usher IRC) at 1 min 30 secs
3, Andre Engermann (St. Tiernans)
4, Laurent Dumoulin (Kanturk Credit Union)
5, Leslie O’Donnell (Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers)
6, Conor O’Crualaoich (Wexford Wheelers)
7, Noel McCarthy (Fermoy CC)
8, T. Boyle (Slane Cycles)
9, Gary Scott (Audi East Antrim)
10, Peter McConville (Newry Wheelers)
11, Martin Phillips (Limerick CC)
12, T. Wilson (Ballymena)
13, Sean McIlroy (Dan Morriseey Carrick Wheelers)

Team: Dan Morrissey (O’Loughlin, O’Donnell, McIlroy)