House takes over after Evans has spell in yellow

CIARAN POWER (Dan Morrissey) claimed his second stage victory and the race leadership changed hands twice in a matter of hours as the 1996 winner, Tommy Evans (Dublin IRC Usher Insulations) took custody of the yellow jersey in the morning team time trial only to pass it on to Kristian House (Recycling.co.uk), the form man going into the race, when the FBD Insurance Rás arrived in Westport last evening.

With two stages remaining House holds a precarious lead as he is on the same time as American, Danny Pate (TIAA-CREF), who had relinquished the overall lead to Tommy Evans in somewhat unusual early morning time trial in An Ceathru Rua.

There were two sections in the team time trial ­ one for international teams and one for county teams ­ and the winners of each got zero penalties while second placed teams got 15 second penalties with each other getting an extra five seconds down the sheet.