Poles dig deep as Kenneally makes move
It was not all plain sailing, however, as Pilltown man, Brian Kenneally, riding for the Meath MyHome.ie/Cycleways team, was overall leader on the road as part of a 12-man group that went 7 mins 59 secs clear at one point.
At the end of the day Kenneally had clawed his way up to eight place overall but it could have been even better were it not for the fact that the group eased back on the throttle on the approach to an unknown obstacle in the form of the Seanafeistin climb which dug deep into their reserves seven miles from the finish.
“I had hoped to gain some time but it was more than I expected,” Kenneally admitted. “I tried to get away a few times but the Americans insisted on chasing me even though I was seven and a half minutes down on GC.
“Then the race leader got away and when Davy O’Loughlin and the others brought him back I escaped with one of the Poland riders and an Australian.
“We closed a two minute gap in less than 15 miles and it was only then I knew I had the lead.
“The bunch brought it back to five and a half minutes before the climb but had we continued as we were then we would have come in five minutes ahead of the field because they gained nothing on the descent.”
Polish riders have a history in this race Olympic bronze medallist Dainis Ozoles won as recent as 1989 and throughout the week they have been coming to terms with the difficulties it presents.
Yesterday they showed the full extent of their power when Jaroslaw Welniak and Bartlomiej Matysiak fought out the finish ahead of Ireland’s Ryan Connor in An Ceathru Rua after escaping from the leading group on the narrow road from the climb.
A disappointed Ray Clarke (Dan Morrissey), who was involved in the action right from the outset, had to settle for fourth place. The Clonmel man made a huge effort in his bid for a first Rás stage win.
But Brian Kenneally had a smile on his face as he crossed the line in 10th position, jumping from 14th place to eighth overall, now just 4:40 behind American Danny Pate (TIAA-CREF) who became the first rider to retain the yellow jersey this year.
He leads the general classification by one second from David O’Loughlin (Ireland Grant Thornton) with Tommy Evans (Dublin IRC Usher Insulations) six seconds further back. Morten Hegrebert (Norway Ssparebanken Vest) is alongside Evans at seven seconds with Kristian House now representing the Recycling.co.uk challenge at 15 seconds going into this morning’s team time trial which will impact on the eventual result.
Regardless of the winning margin, the members of the winning team will have no change to their general classification times while members of the second team will have 15 seconds added, and the members of each of the other teams will be penalised a further five seconds.
Recycling.co.uk will be favourites to win and the defending champion, Chris Newton, back in the green jersey today said they had a strong team and were hoping to win.
Two members of the US TIAA-CREF team have also ridden team time trials together and race leader Danny Pate admitted they were looking to this stage to consolidate his slender lead over Ireland’s David O’Loughlin.
And Australia’s KOM leader, Peter Herzig, who is just 1:16 off the lead said they expected to win this one.
“We have a strong team and strong riders and we will be disappointed if we don’t win,” said Herzig, a 27 year old from Brisbane whose grand mother was Irish.
“We are in sight of the yellow jersey and this will be an opportunity to take back some time on GC,” he said.
“From our point of view it will be something of a damage limitation exercise,” Irish team manager, Frank Campbell, admitted. “The other teams are all experienced at this, they have been riding together regularly while our team was just put together for this race.
“The lads will give a good account of themselves and if they can limit the damage to 20-25 seconds I will be happy. From here on in it gets more like an international bike race.”
Following the early morning team time trial, Stage 7 will take the race from An Cheahru Rua to Westport this afternoon.
