Wetterhall braced for tough day of climbing
The Swedish professional time trial champion — his first professional stage race was in the Tour of Ireland two years ago — snatched the yellow jersey from Dan Craven in amazing circumstances when he caught the Rapha Condor Sharp team off guard on Wednesday, then defended his eight- second lead on the top of Seskin Hill on Thursday and was still eight seconds clear of the Austrian, Josef Kugler, after another spectacular defence from Carrick-on-Suir to Gorey yesterday.
John Degenkolb (Germany Thuringer Energie) won Stage Six in a two-man sprint with the former leader, Dan Craven, who clawed 50 seconds back from Wetterhall and declared the Rapha Condor team wants the yellow jersey back before the race ends in Skerries tomorrow.
“We took 50 seconds back today,” he said. “It was a hard ride. We took the time back the hard way.
“Wetterhall got away in a soft move on Wednesday. He deserved the time he got because he worked so hard but it was still a soft move.
“Today was the first time that the breakaway was actually a hard move that got away on climb and people weren’t able to bring it back. It feels good to be up there in the action when it’s hard like that.
“John Dagenkolb did an amazingly strong ride. The two of us got away. He knew I wanted time and I knew he wanted a stage. We looked at each other and we just knew this breakaway suited both of us. We put our heads down. He got the stage and I got the time. We are both very happy. I’m back in the action — 1 min 32 secs down — maybe not as close as I want to be to the yellow (jersey) but it’s closer and we’re back in the game.
“There are some more Category 1 climbs in the Wicklow Mountains tomorrow — two hard, hard climbs — and the Swedish team is nice and tired. It suits us. All good.
“It has been incredibly hard racing all week. It’s just one attack after the other. The average speeds have been insanely high — it really saps your energy — so if you look in the bunch everyone is tired. Every single day is like a one-day race. It’s just attack after attack and relentless riding.
“I wake up in the mornings and I just feel my sore legs and it’s like ‘Wow, how am I going to do this?’ and we get in a climb in the race and I look at the people around me and I realise they are suffering more than I am.
“I think we saw just how tough it is when Chris Newton blew up on Wednesday. I could almost say that it was my fault that he blew up because he put himself out there for me. He absolutely emptied his tank to bring back the group that group Wetterhall was in.
“Unfortunately we kind of misjudged it and started riding too late. Chris put it all out there for me. I feel honoured to have a two time ex-Rás winner, Olympic medallist, world champion doing something like that, which shows you what level of dedication there is in the team. We want to get the yellow jersey back. That’s what we are here for. We also have Jonathan Tiernan-Locke up there.”
Alexander Wetterhall, however, is not going to give up without a fight and was oozing confidence yesterday.
“It is nice to keep the jersey but I had to do a lot of chasing today,” he said. “There were a lot of breaks and you just cannot allow anybody to go, particularly if they are not too far behind on the GC.
“I hope my legs are good for the climbs tomorrow. If they are, then it will be easy for me to control the race because I feel that everybody is going to have to suffer.”
Yesterday’s stage win provided John Degenkolb with his third win of the season. Earlier he won two stages in the Tour de Britannia in France while he was third in the U23 Tour of Flanders last year and fifth in that race this year.
David O’Loughlin (An Post/Sean Kelly) made a huge move towards retaining the Mountains jersey he won last year when he escaped in a two-man break along with the defending champion, Simon Richardson (Britain Sigmasport Specialised) and Fredrik Johansson (Sweden — Team Sprocket Pro) to mop up the points on four of the six climbs, including the difficult Cat 1 climb at Corrabutt, to consolidate his KOM leadership. Today’s 97-mile stage from Gorey to Kilcullen passes through the Wicklow Mountains and incorporates the Category 1 climbs at Drumgoff and the Wicklow Gap before the Cat 2 at Slieve Corragh.
The race ends in the seaside town of Skerries tomorrow.
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