Irish National Championships...

In my never-ending pursuit of redundancy (I know, that just does not sound good, but after all, I am reporting what has already been reported, even if for a slightly different audience) the Irish, like many nations over the past weekend, crowned their 2011 road and time-trial champions. Not only that but, the rider who will wear the Irish tricolor for the next year, will do so as double champion, having won both the time trail and road race championships. Congratulations to Matt Brammeier. Brammeier, who is also a distinguished track racer, beat out six time National Time Trial Champion, David McCann, by six seconds in the time trial event. In the road race, Brammeier outsprinted Daniel Martin in an extremely close two-up finish (if you thought the American road race finish was close, lets see you call this one without a camera). Disappointingly, neither Brammeier nor Martin have been selected by their respective teams to race the Tour de France this year.