Dan Martin will line out in the final race of his professional career on Saturday when he competes in the Il Lombardia Classic. The Israel Start Up Nation rider will hope to turn the clock back to take a top result in the prestigious Italian event, seven years after winning it with a brilliant final kilometre attack.
He has shown solid form in the run up to the event, netting seventh overall in the Tour of Britain just under a month ago and taking sixth last Saturday in the Giro dell’Emilia. He was a non-finisher in Wednesday’s Milano-Torino due to what he termed a ‘comedy of errors’.
He said he was back at the team car at the moment when crosswinds split the race, and then suffered a mechanical issue five kilometres before the crucial climb in the event.
In Switzerland, Kelly Murphy finished a solid sixth in the individual pursuit on the penultimate day of the European track championships on Friday. She recorded a time of 3 minutes 30.737 seconds, just over a second outside of her national record of 3:29.699, set at the 2020 world championships in Berlin. Mia Griffin also took part, netting eighth with a pace of 3 minutes 32.244 seconds.
JB Murphy finished 11th in the four-event omnium race, one day after taking a superb bronze medal in the scratch race. The 21-year-old was 15th in the omnium's scratch race, seventh in the tempo, and then 22nd in the elimination race. He bounced back in style to take a fine second in the concluding points race. The event was won by the Polish rider Alan Banaszek.
Ireland had a total of four riders in action on Friday. Alice Sharpe was the fourth, finishing 15th in the points race, and will bring Ireland's campaign to a close on Saturday when she and Emily Kay will compete in the women's madison.
The best results have been JB Murphy’s third in the scratch race plus the bronze medal taken by Kelly Murphy, Griffin, Sharpe and Kay in the women’s team pursuit on Wednesday evening.
