Ward clinches Lady of the Lake race victory

ADAM Ward continued his fine form of late to win Saturday’s Mozzarella Fellas Lady of the Lake road race in Irvinestown.

The talented Dunamanagh racer enjoyed a tough battle throughout the event, before putting in a dramatic late charge to beat Team Caldwell Cycles’ Gareth O’Neill and Spellman-Dublin Port’s former Omagh Wheeler, Darragh McCarter to the line for the overall victory.

The win wasn’t straightforward for Ward as his main A1 group started four minutes behind the A2’s, who made the most of their lead over the seven laps of the fast Lady of the Lake circuit.

It took the A1 riders some time to haul in the leading group, averaging 46kph over the first hour of the race.

“It was really, really hard because we had to work so hard to close the gap,” explained the 21-year-old Tyrone man.

“Coming onto the last lap, the A2s still had about 30 seconds on us but just before then Gareth O’Neill and Darragh McCarter went off the front of the scratch group.

“I was watching them for the whole last lap, waiting to pick my moment to go across. Eventually, I managed to kick across from the scratch group to Darragh and Gareth. I had to dig really deep for about five minutes – I’ve never pedalled as hard, ever!

“But I was determined to get across and we caught the front group then, so we were up to the front of the race after chasing for about 85K.

“So, with about 5K to go, we were at the front and on the last K, which is a draggy, slow sprint, I let it out from there and I was able to hold everyone off from there.”

Ward’s triumph came less than a week after he finished 41st in the European Under-23 Championship road race in Portugal, where he came home just three seconds behind the overall winner.

That performance has given him a timely boost ahead of what looks set to be a busy remainder of the summer with the Kreiz Breizh Elites UCI European Tour 2.2 rated race in France and the 10-day Tour de l’Avenir, both of which he raced last year.

“Finishing 41st but so close to the winner is frustrating in the sense that you end up asking yourself ‘what if?’, ‘what if I had got up?’,” he explained.

“But for me, there were a lot of professional bike riders in that front group, so to be able to gap the front of the race, to cross the line and see the European champion and to see the race unfolding in front of me, shows I’m not far away and it’s more than can be said for a lot of people.

“It’s good to be at the front of the race and to be involved, to be there in the fight for the medals. On one hand, it’s frustrating because you think ‘maybe I could have got up’ because the group I was in was sprinting for the top five or top 10 in the European Championships, which is something to be said!

“It’s good. I wouldn’t say I came away from the race frustrated, it’s just maybe a bit of positioning and had I got myself in a better position I could have got into the top 10 or 15 because I have the legs to do that.”

*Photo: Sharon McFarland