Close as House gets home in FBD Rás
House had been on equal time with Pate since Friday evening but held the yellow jersey on placings. Yesterday, he finished seven places ahead of the American a 27 year old from Colorado Springs into Clara on Saturday evening when Bartlomiej Matyhsiak from Poland won the stage from Ciaran Power (Dan Morrissey) and yesterday, when Morten Hegregberg from Norway won the stage into Skerries from Simon Kelly (Murphy & Gunn/Newlyn Group) House finished fifth with Pate ninth.
While he had failed to gain any time in what was a tense psychological and physical struggle between two of the strongest teams in the peleton, House reinforced his leadership to take the title from team mate, Chris Newton.
“We can win most places we go to with a team like that,” House insisted as he paid tribute to the contribution his team had made in the nail-biting finish to a 1,200 km race which was fought out in atrocious weather.
“We had a pretty tough week, we won the first stage and took the yellow jersey, then we lost it, took it back after the team time trial and there was still no time between myself and Danny Pate after eight days of racing.”
Coming on the back of five big wins including the Girvan and the Lincoln Grand Prix, he said this would go down as the most important victory in his career thus far.
“I knew what was ahead of me coming here,” he said. “The Ras is a unique race. I rode it once before and I struggled all the way through.
“I was lucky to have a really good team behind me. Chris Newton had done it all before and he knew what it was about, but the young guys were fantastic. It is the biggest stage race I have ever won.”
Ciaran Power, twice overall winner, came into the race after injury hoping to win a stage. He won two, finished second in another, and had a huge bonus in the form of the polka dot jersey of the Mountains winner.
“If anybody told me I would go into the final stage defending the mountains jersey, I would not believe it,” he said.
Power outsprinted Peter Herzig from Australia, who had been just a point behind him, on the first climb and was ahead of him again at the Cross of the Cage, and won the first of the two trips up Black Hills on the finishing circuit to clinch victory.
It was the second visit to that climb that eventually split the bunch and left a 29-man leading group to contest the sprint with victory going to Morten Hegreberg from Norway who ended his campaign in the green point jersey.
The International team award went to Norway Sparevanken Vest while coveted county team award went to the Meath MyHome.ie/Cycleways team.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
