Walker wins but Bennett steals show

NICHOLAS WALKER (Australia Cinelli-DownUnder) was the surprise stage winner and Simon Richardson (Britain Rapha Condor) took the race-leader’s yellow jersey, but it was young Sam Bennett (Tipperary Dan Morrissey) who turned in the performance of the day to finish sixth in the uphill sprint when the FBD Insurance Rás arrived in Killorglin last evening.

What made it even more dramatic for the 18-year-old Carrick-on-Suir man was that the 110 mile trek from Caherciveen incorporated the Category 1 Conor Pass among six climbs along the way and he crossed with some of the best riders in Europe.

And when the big leading group screamed into Killorglin he positioned himself for a ferocious sprint up the hill that again involved Russell Downing (Britain Candi TV Marshalls), who won a number of stages and held the race leadership up to the final day in last year’s professional Tour of Ireland and also finished second on Sunday when Bennett was seventh.

This time it was Downing who got caught up in the traffic and had to be content with third as Walker grabbed victory on the line from fast finishing Jan Barta (Austria Arbo KTM Junkers) with Bennett closing all the time.

“It was some day,” Bennett admitted. “I felt so good on the Conor Pass I could hardly believe it. I was climbing superbly. I seemed to go with everything and the climb seemed to fly by. I knew immediately I hit it I was in great shape.” His titanic effort made sure he was perfectly placed when the chasing group assembled on the descent with Richardson’s Rapha Condor team driving them along at the front.

“When we got to the bottom Rapha Condor started drilling it at the front,” he said. “The pace was just unbelievable and we opened up nearly two minutes on the yellow jersey who was behind in another chasing group.

“I tried to recover as well as possible and then I felt brilliant coming up for the gallop. I got myself into good position but when a fellow came up on the outside I had to break and lost a couple of places.”

That was much the same as Sunday’s sprint when he misjudged the corner in Wexford and found himself too far adrift.

Hailing from Sean Kelly’s hometown, he has been dubbed “the next Kelly.” A former winner of an Irish Examiner Junior Sport Star Award, he won a world junior title on the track last year and is set to join VC La Pomme in Marseilles in July.

Yesterday’s stage swept David O’Loughlin (An Post/Sean Kelly/M. Donnelly) into the pink jersey of the mountains leader. The Mayo man, who represented Ireland on the track at the Beijing Olympics last year, was in the eight-man break that dominated yesterday’s race.

With his team-mates Niko Eeckhout and Páidí O’Brien alongside from the time the group got established after just 10k he also included Stephen Halpin (Ireland Development U23), Tom Southam (Britain Rapha Condor), Mark McNally (Britain Halfords Bike Hut), Kit Gilham (Britain C’Shire Sigmasport), Peter Hawkins (Dublin IRC Ushers Insulations), Michael Fitzgerald (Dublin Eurocycles) and late arrival Morten Kruse Brink (Denmark Designa Kokken) for company. On the approach to the Conor Pass they enjoyed a lead of more than six minutes and, with O’Loughlin 7 mins 12 secs behind yesterday’s leader, Ian Wilkinson (Halfords Bike Hut), it appeared as if he might be about to take yellow.

But he gladly settled for pink after hoovering up maximum points on four of the six climbs, including the Conor Pass and the fact he finished second on the other two put him three points clear of Kit Gilham on the mountains classification and that could possibly be sufficient to carry him through to the finish in Skerries on Sunday.

Simon Richardson, whose season was disrupted by a crash in the Girvan Premier Calendar Race in March, looked confident in the yellow jersey after yesterday’s stage which gave him a lead of 2 mins 49 secs over Jaan Mads Christensen (Denmark Designa Kokken) 13 seconds further back. David McCann (Ireland National Team) is best of the Irish on GC in eighth place at 6:09 while Ian Richardson, who led the race going into yesterday’s stage is now sixth at 3:34.

For stage winner Nicholas Walker, a 20-year-old from Melbourne, it was his first victory since he joined the team, which is based in Belgium, in March. “Coming into the race my goal was to get on the podium and I did that the first day. Now I have won a stage,” he said.

Today’s stage takes the race from Killorglin to Scarriff – a distance of 96 miles – and with just two category three climbs along the way it should provide some respite for the weary legs.