Darren Rafferty has put in a very solid rider at U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège in Belgium, where the Irish 18-year-old was among just 56 finishers, from 154 starters, and contributed to his team’s effort through the full 175km race.
Riding the hardest and longest race he has done to date, the Hagens Berman Axeon Irishman was in the remains of the peloton – numbering 26 riders – some eight seconds down on the small breakaway sprinting for victory yesterday.
The race was won from that seven-rider group by Romain Grégoire (Equipe continentale Groupama-FDJ), last year’s junior European road race champion and silver medal winner in the junior road race at the Worlds.
The race, which took the riders from Bastogne to Blegny, took in 11 categorised climbs including Côte de Houffalize, Côte de Bolland and Côte de la Redoute.
Rafferty held his place in the front 10-15 for the vast majority of the race, coping very well with the climbs as the attritional nature of the course saw the main field constantly whittled down. There were so few finishers because riders were pulled out once they had fallen 10 minutes behind the front of the race.
Arno Brouwers (Acrog-Tormans) and Frederik Bjorn Sorensen (ColoQuick) went on the attack shortly after the start. They were caught with just under 90km remaining after they had built a lead that reached a maximum of 2½ minutes.
Further attacks immediately the two early escapees were caught saw a six-man group go clear, including eventual race winner Grégoire. However, they were caught with about 25km to go before another group – again containing Grégoire – got clear.
Also in that move were: Johannes Staune-Mittet (Jumbo Visma Development), William Junior Lecerf (Lotto-Soudal U23), Aloïs Charrin (Swiss Racing Academy), Mason Hollyman (Israel Cycling Academy) Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto-Soudal U23) and Gwen Leclainche (CC Étupes).
Rafferty was deployed on team duties on the front of the thinned down peloton in a bid to bring back the moves in the final hour of racing, though the final breakaway was successful; just holding off the chasers by eight seconds.
Rafferty was in that 26-strong group that finished eight seconds down but rolled up to the finish at the back of that group, with a small gap opening, meaning he finished at 12 seconds.
He placed 33rd, last man of what remained of the peloton, with the team mate he was working for, Dries De Pooter, getting 3rd in the bunch sprint and so finishing 10th in the race of 154 starters.
