Pre-race favourite Nicolas Roche (Credit Agricole) yesterday won the Irish National Elite Time Trial Championships in Dungarvan.
Roche has come out of his first three-week Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia, with very good legs.
He covered the distance in a time of 44 minutes 7.3 seconds, beating two previous national champions - David McCann (Colavita-Sutter Home) and David O'Loughlin (Navigators) - by 12 and 33 seconds respectively.
Winning this event will allow Roche to don the national champion's jersey in every time trial he enters on the ProTour circuit for the next 12 months.
The time trial championships is a warm up act to the national road race championships taking place in Waterford on Sunday, 1 July.
