Power play as O’Loughlin makes move

CIARÁN POWER (Dan Morrissey) claimed stage victory in a sprint with Lukasz Modzelewski (Poland Legia Bazylisek) in a spectacular finish to stage four of the FBD Insurance RAS in Listowel last evening.

Power’s Navigators team-mate, David O’Loughlin (Ireland Grant Thornton) was third as Danny Pate (TIAA-CREF) reclaimed the yellow jersey from fellow American, Mike Friedman.

While Pate, a former world U23 time trial champion, was back in yellow, the top of the general classification took on a new look for the third successive day. Friedman ended up 11th overall, over seven minutes down, with the defending champion and two time winner, Chris Newton (Britain Recycling.co.uk), who was second and poised to challenge just 24 hours earlier, cascaded down to 13th position with no hope of retaining the title.

In fact it would appear that the race will now be fought out between seven contenders with O’Loughlin now just one second behind Pate and two time winner, Tommy Evans (Dublin IRC Usher Insulations), now third overall at seven seconds. Morten Hegrebert (Norway Sparebanken Vest) is on the same time as Evans.

Kristian House, who came in with some big wins behind him including the Lincoln Grand Prix, is now Recycling’s only hope of taking the title at 15 seconds and Galway man, Simon Kelly (Murphy & Gunn/Newlyn Group) is a surprise challenger at one minute with Aussie Pete Herzig (FRF Couriers) at 1:16.

Ciarán Power never had overall ambitions. Winner of the title in 1998 and 2002, he had only a couple of races behind him when he went to the line. He was out for several months with a blood obstruction that led to numbness and loss of power in one leg. He had surgery to remedy the situation and proved yesterday that his is close to the form that saw him finish 13th in the Athens Olympic road race.

It was another difficult day for riders who not only had wind and rain to contend with once again but had to face the challenge posed by a relatively unknown but now notorious climb at The Maum. It was there Power had to make the decision whether he would defend his polka dot jersey or go for the stage win.

“Coming into the race I said if I had any kind of legs at all I would go for a stage win,” he said. “I tried everything to get away. When I did and the lads came across to us I still had something in the tank.

“On the climb Lukasz Modzelewski attacked and I decided to go for the stage so I saved a little bit of energy and now I was able to stay with the boys when they went really hard.”

Modzelewski blew the leading group apart on the climb. Amongst those who went out the back door early on was Conor Murphy of Grant Thornton Team Ireland. But he had done what he was sent out to do.

“The idea was to get him into the early break and then have him ready to take over when David O’Loughlin got across,” Irish team manager, Frank Campbell, said. “When David got across with the big group Conor immediately went to the front and he did more than his share out there.”

The leaders were never going to regroup totally after the devastation wreaked upon them and Power, after opting for an easy day on Tuesday, was full of fire when things settled down.

“With 15 or 20 kilometres to go I attacked. I was not up on GC so I hoped they had no reason to chase me but Modzelewski was watching me. We rode well together once we got away,” said the Waterford man.

“Going into the last kilometre I saw David (O’Loughlin) coming across so I left the Pole at the front and told him David was coming up and he was my team-mate. I think that put an extra bit of pressure on him.”

With 350m to go Power attacked but the Pole pulled him back. He went again at 250m and he knew he had his third Rás stage victory at his mercy. O’Loughlin finished fast to take third ahead of Tommy Evans and Pate.

“I am in a pretty good position now,” said O’Loughlin. “We isolated a few guys today including Chris Newton so that now Recycling and TIAA-CEEF each have just one in contention instead of two.”

But Pate, who also took the yellow jersey on Monday, was happy predicting that they will do well in the team time trial.

“We just have to keep the gaps as they are and then be there when the team time trial comes around,” he said.

John McCarthy (Kerry Earl of Desmond) finished 10th on the stage into his home town. “Obviously it was great to finish up in the top 10 in my home town,” he said. “But it was a long day. I jumped away five our six miles before Dingle and it was tough in the conditions.”

Today’s stage takes the riders 110 miles from Kilrush to An Cheathru Rua, visiting Milltown Malbay, Lahinch, Ennistymon, Lisdoonvarna, Ballyvaughan, Kilcolgan, Clarinbridge, Moycullen, and Casla with the finish timed for about 3.30pm.