Sprint king O’Loughlin takes centre stage

AFTER leading the race through his home town of Cong, David O’Loughlin (An Post/Sean Kelly), supplied the perfect finishing touch to the third stage of the FBD Insurance Rás when he outsprinted defending champion, Simon Richardson (Sigma Sport Specialised).

Dan Craven and his Rapha Condor Sharp team turned in a superb defence of the yellow jersey and he still leads on General Classification by seven seconds from O’Loughlin’s team-mate Mark McNally while O’Loughlin himself and Richardson, who were more than three and a half minutes down after the opening stage, both move up into the top 10 on GC – 1min 45secs behind the leader.

Following the cancellation of Monday’s stage as a result of the crash, it was business as usual yesterday when the Rás bounced back with an enthralling stage that saw O’Loughlin and Richardson go head-to-head for almost four hours after making an early escape from the main bunch.