Mulhussey’s Walls joins illustrious company

CYCLING

Mulhussey's Matthew Walls joined such esteemed company as Grand Tour stage winners Nicholas Roche, Sam Bennett and Eddie Dunbar to claim the Junior Tour of Ireland in Clare last weekend.

Walls survived a final stage scare to claim the race and become just the fourth Irish winner since 2000, joining the illustrious company of the Grand Tour stage winners.

Walls made, indeed forced and drove along, the two key moves of the race, winning stage 2 in a two-man breakaway and finishing second on Saturday, in another two-man move that was the key move of the race in terms of time gained.

He went into Sunday’s final stage – a 79.1km circuit race just outside Ennis – with a handsome lead of 44 seconds over Hot Tubes team mates Luca Bednarek and Jack Ray who were second and third on the same time going into the final stage.

However, when Ray got into the winning breakaway and at one point gained 44 seconds, Walls and his Cycling Leinster team were forced to redouble their efforts on the front of the bunch, after riding hard for the whole stage.

In the breakaway were GC threat Jack Ray (Hot Tubes), eventual stage winner Seth Jackson (FH MAS Cams), Ben Arey (Halesowen Academy-Mapei), Ryan Oldfield (Halesowen Academy-Mapei), Caden Freyre (Hot Tubes), seventh overall at 58 seconds Garrett Beshore (Boulder Junior Cycling), Hugh Óg Mulhearne (Cycling Ireland) and Desmond Mohr (Boulder Junior Cycling).

Mulhearne, who was away on his own for a long time on Saturday’s stage, looked very strong on the latter stages of Sunday’s race.

However, Walls was a match for the breakaway riders, powering away on the front, especially on the last lap after the breakaway’s advantage had briefly gone out to 44 seconds.

By the the finish, though the breakaway hung on to fight it out for the stage honours, Walls and his team had reduced the gap enough – to just 16 seconds – to ensure they kept the yellow jersey, with Walls confirmed as the 2025 champion.