Alice Sharpe sprints swiftest to claim Irish road race crown

Alice Sharpe proved strongest in an eight-rider uphill sprint finish at the Cycling Ireland National Road Race Championship senior women's event today and, in doing so, led home an IBCT team clean sweep.

Sharpe, Mia Griffin and Fiona Mangan monopolised the top three steps of the podium in Kanturk, with Caoimhe O’Brien (Torelli-Assure-Cayman Islands-Scimitar) finishing fractionally behind Mangan in the sprint and then crashing just past the finish line. O'Brien was fortunately okay, and congratulated Sharpe on her win.

Sharpe previously took the title in 2019 and was delighted to do so again.

"It feels just as good, if not better, because I had a few years in between where I either wasn’t racing or other people were better than me," she said. "It is good to get back into the jersey and prove that I can still do it."

Another IBCT rider, Megan Armitage was very strong, having prepared specifically for the race in Girona in Spain, but wasn’t able to break the elastic during the race.

She launched an attack inside the final two kilometres but was brought back, setting things up for a sprint.

Sharpe described how things then panned out: "It was a big of a cagey run into the finish there. On the last bend, I guess with 600 metres to go, there were quite a few manhole covers. So I think there were quite a few wheels coming out there," she said. "I thought I had gone too early. I went with maybe 250 metres to go, but just put the head down and held on to the line."

The event began under drizzling rain and had periods of rain interspersed with dryer conditions. The riders did an opening lap of 59 kilometres and then three laps of a 15-kilometre finishing loop, with a tough hill coming soon after the start of the latter and another uphill