European Under 23 and Junior Road Championships 2022 Results
Ireland was represented by a strong team of riders for the European u23 and Junior Road Championships in Anadia, Portugal in the searing heat over the weekend.
On the opening day of competition, Darren Rafferty powered to a 6th place finish in u23 Time Trial. The first-year u23 rider covered the 22km course in a time of 28:36, averaging 46.154km per hour. Kevin McCambridge finished 28th, 2:29 down on winner Alec Segaert.
Conal Scully and Liam O'Brien also competed in the Time Trial in the Junior category, finishing 24th (at 2:27) and 37th (at 3:54).
The riders faced challenging conditions for the road races with temperatures reaching over 40 degrees degrees cesius.
In the Junior women's race, Ireland was represented by Erin Creighton and Aoife O'Brien. O'Brien finished in the last group which was classified as being outside the time limit, while Creighton was among the non-finishers.
The Junior men's race included Conal Scully who finished 29th at 6:36 and Niall McLoughlin who placed 44th at 6:50. Adam Gilsenan, Liam O'Brien, Patrick O'Loughlin and Sam Bolger also competed but were among the 65 riders who did not finish the race.
Attention then turned to the u23 riders on Sunday, who faced similarly hot temperatures. Caoimhe O'Brien was the sole representative in the u23 women's race who did extremely well to finish the race which had a large number of non-finishers. O'Brien finished 46th at 9:06.
Darren Rafferty and Adam Ward were among the reduced peloton that finished just three seconds behind the winner, Felix Engelhardt, placing 27th and 41st respectively. Kevin McCambridge finished in 62nd place at 3:51 while Archie Ryan and Dean Harvey came home in 88th and 91st position respectively. Odhran Doogan was among the 50 riders who did not finish the race.