SCOTT HAMILTON of Maryland Wheelers, Belfast retained the 25-mile time-trial championship on Saturday. Anthony Doyle from the Morrissey's team in Carlow took both stages in the two-day Tour of Wexford so was clearly best overall.

Maryland promoted the time trial on the Nutts Corner-Airport road and 21-year-old Hamilton registered the fastest time of 53 minutes and 13 seconds to win by 39 seconds from Tommy Evans with Simon Coughlan third another 53 seconds slower.

Evans left immediately afterwards to ride in the mountain time trial over one lap of the 37.75 miles Isle of Man TT circuit yesterday morning and he finished sixth with FBD Milk Ras winner Andy Roche second.

Hamilton completed a clean sweep of all three time-trial championships last year but, because of a knee injury this was only his second race of the season. He reappeared last week and surprised his rivals with a powerful display on Saturday morning. Maryland also took the team title.

Mark Scanlon was clearly best of the juniors with 56:03.

At Wexford on Saturday evening Doyle won the opening stage of 51 miles with Ciaran Power second and the outcome was the same at the end of yesterday's 54 miles with Shane Baker third and that was the final order overall.

Former professional Joe Barr led in a leading group to take the McArdle trophy race at Dundalk.