HTC Highroad rider pulls off remarkable double success
Irish champion Matt Brammeier has a solid programme of upcoming races, with some WorldTour races on his schedule between now and the end of September. The motivated HTC Highroad rider is in strong form, as evidenced by his performances in the Irish championships, and is keen to show what he can do in order to secure a contract for 2012.
He’s currently halfway through a one year deal with his current team and with its future being uncertain due to a lack of sponsorship, wants to underline his qualities in the next couple of months and secure a good contract. That could be with his current team if it gets backing, or it could be elsewhere; either way, riding strongly in races is the best tactic.
“Next week I do the Tour of Austria, then I have a few weeks at altitude,” he told VeloNation in a video interview after winning Sunday’s road race. “Then I do San Sebastian, Eneco Tour, Hamburg, Plouay and the Tour of Britian. Then, hopefully, world championships.”
Brammeier pulled off a remarkable double in recent days, winning the Irish time trial title ahead of David McCann on Friday, and then successfully defending his road race title on Sunday. He broke clear with Garmin-Cervélo’s Daniel Martin on the last of seven laps of the undulating County Monaghan circuit, then took an extremely tight sprint to the line.
Brammeier led out the sprint and timed his lunge to perfection, throwing his bike slightly earlier than Martin and beating him by one centimetre. Neither knew who won, and had to wait several nervous minutes before the photo finish revealed the victor.
The result means that he will be able to wear the white and green jersey in both road races and time trials for the next twelve months.
“I felt pretty good all day, really. I tried to do as little work, as little watts as I could all day, and save it all for that last lap up the climb,” he told VeloNation afterwards.
That tactical decision to hold back helped him to recover from the exertions of the time trial, and also meant that he had burned fewer matches than Martin, who was one of the most aggressive riders in the race.
As Brammeier acknowledges in the interview below, his victory was in some ways partly due to the fair play shown to him by Kurt Bogaerts, the manger of the An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly team. He raced with the squad last year and knows Bogaerts well. Although the latter had four riders competing against the HTC Highroad rider on Sunday, he agreed to bring Brammeier’s replacement bike to Ireland after his other machine ended up with a fingertip-sized hole in the downtube. It was damaged during the flight journey prior to Friday’s time trial, and meant he had a nervous warm-up ride on Saturday.