Ireland’s Ryan Mullen and Eddie Dunbar have finished fourth and ninth in the Men’s Under 23 Time Trial at the European Road Championships in Tartu, Estonia this morning.
Mullen went agonisingly close to a second successive medal in major international road time trial championships by ending his 31.5km effort, just 1.67s slower than bronze medal winner Maximillian Schachmann of Germany.
Having missed out on gold in last year’s World Championship by less than a second, it’s another near miss for the 20-year-old who has previously medalled at the European Championships as a Junior.
“I’m happy with my performance,” said Mullen afterwards. “It’s a solid start to building my fitness for the world championships.”
Meanwhile Eddie Dunbar completed an excellent morning for the Irish squad with a fine ninth place finish in the U23 time trial.
The diminutive Corkman, still just 18 years old, belied his rookie status to race to a time less than a minute behind the race winner Steven Lammertink of the Netherlands.
For full results see http://www.championchip.ee/ftp/liveresults/2015/150807_U23M/
Both Mullen and Dunbar will look forward to Sunday’s road race where they will be joined by Daniel Stewart and Seán McKenna.
Next in action for the Irish squad are Simon Tuomey and Michael O’Loughlin in the Junior Time Trial in this afternoon.
Tuomey begins the 18.4km event at 1.32pm with O’Loughlin following him off the start ramp at 2.01pm.
For full results and details of live streaming of events see the event website: http://www.roadec2015.ee/
