The squad raced in three different countries at the start of August: With a team in Ireland at the Suir Valley three day stage race, one at the Antwerpse Havenpijl in Belguim and another lining up at the Ride London Classic in England.
In Ireland the team started with five riders, Sam Bennett, Ronan Mc Laughlin, Jack Wilson, Sean Downey and Shane Archbold. The mostly Irish team was eager to impress on home roads. The race couldn't have gone much better for the team, after Sam took second place on stage one and the overall lead thanks to time bonus's collected along the road, they went on to win every stage after that.
Jack Wilson took stage two - a morning stage with three climbs and a hard final twenty kilometres before Shane Archbold secured the win in the evening criterium around Clonmel town centre with a late attack.
Sam then won the the fourth and final stage on a mountain top finish not far from his home town. The team had rode superbly all day - to keep the breakaway containing second place overall within reach - and eventually caught them just at the start of the final climb to the finish.
On top of all this stage success Sam secured the overall victory and the points classification. Ronan also won the intermediate sprints competition taking points on each stage by placing himself in breakaways every day, which also lifted him to second overall in the king of the mountains competition. All in all a very successful trip home for the team.
Meanwhile, the team where racing in Belgium in the Antwerpse Haven Pijl 1.2 which was the last round of the prestigious season long ‘Europe Tour Series’ Top competition.
Going into the race Nicolas Veerecken was leading this competition so the goal for the team was to help Nicolas secure the win. Lining up alongside Nicolas was Pieter Ghyllebert, Steven Van Vooren, Wout Fransen and Laurent Van Den Bak.
The team was successful in chasing down a couple of breakaways containing riders who could threaten Nicolas's lead and after Nicolas placed himself in the top thirty in the finish he secured the overall win in the Top competition, another fantastic achievement in what has been a hugely successful season for Nicolas.
Last but not least, the team started the Ride London Classic with six riders, Mark Mc Nally, Kieran Frend, Alphonse Vermote, Niels Wytinck, Aaron Gate and Glenn O'Shea. This was the first edition of the 240km race and took in a lot of the route from the London Olympic Games road race of last year, including the now famous Box Hill.
The race came down to a bunch sprint along the Mall in central London and was won by FDJ rider Arnaud Demare.
Niels, Mark and Aaron all finished in this leading bunch. A fine result considering the very tough nature of this race and also considering Aaron has come directly from focusing on track racing for the past month.