Ben Healy victorious at Road National Championships

Ben Healy picked up a brilliant win on the final day of the Road National Championships in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, to cap off a groundbreaking couple of months that also featured a Giro d'Italia stage win.

An opening loop with an unrelenting pace, the elite men's race was an 164.3km epic featuring six laps of an intense race circuit.

After multiple attacks off the front, a select group of 15 got away that featured most of the big names, including Sam Bennett, Rory Townsend, Ryan Mullen, Dillon Corkery and Healy.

Darren Rafferty was perhaps the biggest name to miss that decisive move, while Aaron Wade suffered a mechanical issue and dropped out of that group before the action kicked off.

Healy wasn't prepared to take his chances in the bigger group and put in some strong digs along the punchy climbs to narrow it down to six in front with six chasers ahead of the main group.

Initially gaining a modest gap of around one minute, the leaders included Healy, Townsend, Bennett, Mullen, Corkery and Leo Doyle as Conn McDunphy, Daire Feeley, Luke Smith, Pat McLean, Kevin McCambridge and Ewan Warren chased behind at +0:37.

It all came back together behind the six leaders as Healy again tried to get the jump on his breakaway compatriots on Killyliss climb and really opened the taps to soar away.

That group wouldn't see Healy again for much of the race as he built a gap of over 30 seconds with four laps to go.

The five chasers behind worked well together and looked likely to reel Healy in, coming as close as fifteen seconds before the gap began to increase again.

A talented time trialist, Healy was well able to set a blistering pace throughout flat sections and packed a punch on the sharp climbs that came his way.

In the group behind, teammates