Specialist climbers lick their lips as Rás heads to Donegal

The 2012 An Post Rás will take a north-westerly bent this May, visiting Donegal for the first time in five years but reducing its footprint in Munster to one stage between Kilkenny and Gort as a result.

Unlike last year, when the event included stage finishes in Clare, Kerry, Cork and Waterford, there will be none in the southern province this time, with the peloton passing only briefly through parts of Tipperary, Limerick and Clare on its way west.

“It isn’t really possible to go down to, say, Kerry and then all the way up to Donegal,” said race director Dermot Dignam at the launch of the race’s 60th edition in Dublin’s GPO on O’Connell Street yesterday.

“It’s a few years since we were up in the north and north-west and Donegal is such a massive county with great roads and climbs that there was no point in just going up and coming back out again. We wanted to do it justice.”

Donegal boasts two of the toughest climbs in the country: the feared Mamore Gap on the Bundoran-Buncrana leg on day five and the Glengesh Pass 24 hours later on the way from Buncrana to Killybegs.

This is the first visit to Donegal since 2007 and the race, which is expected to number up to 170 amateur and professional riders, will begin in Dunboyne on May 20 and end in Skerries a week later, taking in 14 different counties and a total of 1,168km.

This is the second consecutive year that the route has been designed by cyclist Stephen O’Sullivan and Dignam, who performed the task prior to that, has described it as the most challenging in recent memory.

“There are a huge number of difficult ascents littered throughout the route and overall it is probably leaning more towards the climber than the all-rounder,” he said.

Invitations have already been sent across the globe for a race which always attracts a strong international field — British sprint king Mark Cavendish and 2011 World Time Trial champion Tony Martin of Germany are past participants.

Lithuania’s Gediminas Bagdonas finished top of the general classification last year and his An Post Sean Kelly team took the collective honours in what was their first outing as title sponsors.

Bagdonas and An Post are expected to be in the running again, although the Eastern European’s teammate and sprint specialist Sam Bennett is hoping to become the first native winner since Stephen Gallagher in 2008.