Gallagher grabs the glory
The 27-year-old Armagh man, who is based in the Sean Kelly Academy in Belgium, was rewarded for his consistency on Sunday’s first stage when he finished second in a Hot Spot sprint in Kells because that gave him what proved to be two valuable bonus seconds.
The two-second advantage going into yesterday’s stage proved crucial when he got into a three-man breakaway group along with England’s Dean Downing and Evan Oliphant. He knew he would be on a hiding to nothing in this sprint, but he would happily settle for the bigger prize that came wrapped in glorious yellow.
But he was close enough in the sprint to thrill the big crowd that assembled on a sunny afternoon in Claremorris to see Oliphant lead it out with 200m to go only for Downing to come around in spectacular fashion to claim victory with Gallagher hanging on to that crucial second that would give him the yellow jersey.
Gallagher could hardly believe his luck when he was presented with the yellow jersey. ‘‘Obviously it is important for me personally and for the team who have worked so hard,’’ he said. ‘‘Every rider wants to get the yellow jersey in the Rás so I am very happy for myself and the team.’’
Whether or not he intends to launch a serious defence of the leadership over the coming days remains to be seen because he admitted that it was too early in the week to think about overall victory.
‘‘It is much too early to be thinking about that,’’ he said. ‘‘Right now we have Mark Cassidy up there, Daniel Lloyd is not too far away, Paidi (O’Brien) is there and so, too, is Benny de Schrooder — who was third on Sunday — so we have a few cards to play.’’
Mark Cassidy sprinted in for fourth place with the other teammate who had been in the break, Roger Aiken, 13th.
But nobody in this group was going to outsprint Dean Downing whose brother, Russell, has won a number of stages in the race. He almost did not make it across to the leading group of some 50 riders yesterday. He was just coming across along with David O’Loughlin (Pezula) when he hit a rock and punctured. ‘‘I had to go back through the peloton and wait for a wheel,’’ he said. ‘‘I chased in the cars for about 5k, got back up to the peloton and then attacked with a group of five. We rode across a gap of a minute and that was it for the day. We never saw the peloton again.’’
Then they got into the 14-man group that would dominate the remainder of the race leaving Ken Hanson in the yellow jersey languishing in a chasing group more than a minute behind.
When Oliphant attacked out of this group Downing and Gallagher went with him and when Downing began attacking again with 2k remaining Gallagher reeled him in and told him to “stop messing around”.
Downing then waited for the sprint, his third big win of the year and one of the most important victories of his career.
Kurt Bogaerts, manager of the An Post/Sean Kelly team, was delighted with their first yellow jersey in the Rás after Paidi O’Brien had come so close last year. ‘‘I set two goals coming into the race — to get the yellow jersey and get a stage win — and we have achieved one of those,’’ Bogaerts said. ‘‘But it is difficult to defend the jersey in a race like this with only five guys on the team so we will try to keep everyone in contention.’’
Today’s stage takes the riders 82.7 miles to Lisdoonvarna where they are due to arrive at 2:20pm with a sting in the tail in the form of a first category climb at Doonagore, just over four miles from the finish.
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