The 2010 Irish road race champion Matt Brammeier is upbeat about his form heading into Sundays’ defence of his title. The HTC Highroad rider headed to Ireland determined to try to retain the distinctive white and green jersey; he quickly picked up one where he didn’t expect when he won Friday evening’s Elite time trial.
“It is great, it is really unexpected. I was coming here hoping to get a medal, and to win it is pretty unbelievable,” he told VeloNation in a video interview.
Brammeier ploughed through wet and cold conditions to cover the Emyvale course in a time of 50 minutes 15 seconds. This was six seconds quicker than former champion David McCann (Giant Kenda) and sixteen clear of Michael Hutchinson (In Gear Quick Vit UK).
He said that it gave him a boost prior to Sunday’s road race. “Obviously from winning last year I had confidence, and to win today gives me even more confidence,” he said. “I am happy where I am now…I am ready to go into it. I am not going to put too much pressure on myself on Sunday, I am just going to treat it as just another race, really. We’ll see how it pans out.”
Brammeier’s Specialized bike was damaged badly in transit, with a hole being punched through the downtube by careless airport staff. As a result he had to arrange a replacement bike, and was due to collect it Saturday from the manager of the An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly team, Kurt Bogaerts.
Brammeier was part of that squad last year and knows that its four riders in Sunday’s road race – Sam Bennett, Philip Lavery, Ronan McLaughlin and Mark Cassidy – may not be the best known in the field, but they are threats.
Individually, the three other UCI ProTeam riders, namely Nicolas Roche (Ag2r La Mondiale), Dan Martin (Garmin-Cervélo) and Philip Deignan (Team RadioShack), are likely to be even more dangerous. He said that they will all be watched closely and that he will try to avoid being placed on the back foot.
“I need to make sure I stay in the front again, I’m not in a position where I need to race,” he said. “I am going to try to ride a similar race to last year. I’m happy with the course – while I haven’t seen it yet, I’ve seen a few of the roads around here, there’s not much flat. These type of roads are pretty similar to last year…pretty up and down and heavy, so I’m excited.”
Should he managed to win again, it would boost his chances of getting a good contract for next season. He is on a one year deal with HTC Highroad, and confirms recent media reports that the squad is in a tough position with regards backing for next year. It’s not certain to fold, but may have to do so if a new deal is not found by the end of the Tour de France.
“I think everyone has know for a while that we don’t yet have a sponsor for next year,” he stated. “Obviously it is affecting us all. Not just the riders, the staff and everyone…we don’t really know if we will have jobs for next year. It is starting to get a little bit nervous, a little bit stressy. But we as bike riders need to keep doing what we are doing, keep winning races, and hope that other people in the background are doing their jobs and going to pull something off.”
This will give him further determination on Sunday, where he with clash with the other riders over seven laps of a lumpy 25 kilometre circuit.