Alice Sharpe rounds off an impressive European Championships for the Irish cycling team with a top 30 finish in the women’s road race in Munich today, finishing in 29th position.
Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands) sprinted to glory to claim the title of European Road Champion beating the World Champion Elisa Balsamo and Rachele Barbieri, both Italian.
Starting in Landsberg am Lech, the 129.8-kilometre route took the riders past Lake Ammersee and Lake Starnberg to Wolfratshausen and over its hill, all the way to Munich before they entered the technically challenging 13-kilometre circuit around Munich’s city centre for two laps.
Sharpe rode extremely well throughout the race fighting to maintain her position towards the front of the bunch for the majority of the race while dodging two crashes along the way. Once the race moved onto the fast city centre circuit it was much more difficult to move up to the front of the bunch, however Sharpe did well to stick the lightning pace of the bunch finishing just 10 seconds down on the winner.
Top 30 finish for Alice Sharpe in the road race 🙌
What a performance to finish in 29th place💪#Munich2022 #EuroRoad22 pic.twitter.com/vQMp18DUtW— Cycling Ireland (@CyclingIreland) August 21, 2022
Speaking about how the race went, Sharpe said:
“It was kind of as expected. I thought it would come down to a sprint, but it was quite stressy over all of the climbs. There was a lot of pushing and shoving in the peloton and fighting for a position pretty much all day. But it came down to a sprint in the end which I was expecting.
“I basically wanted to jump on the back of someone’s lead out train, I’d say I didn’t really quite do that, I was jumping people near the finish. I kind of lost my position going around that last bend on the Munich version of the l'Arc de Triomphe but yes, I’m happy enough,” she added.
Sharpe was the sole Irish rider in the race today as her teammate, Mia Griffin was unable to race today due to the injury she sustained in the Madison on the final day of the European Track Championships earlier in the week. Sharpe herself was also involved in two crashes on the track in the Elimination race but following a week of rest and recovery she was able to compete in the road race today and produce an impressive result.
Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile
