Super Shaw back in yellow

Following a brutal battle with the elements racing around South Kerry for yesterday’s third stage of the Kerry Group Rás Mumhan, Mullingar man Damian Shaw of the Aquablue team regained the leader’s yellow jersey with an awesome show of strength.

Shaw, who was 10th in the race last year riding for his local club in Westmeath, made the switch to the Cork-based club over the winter, that of former winners Sean Lacey (2011) and Timmy Barry (2010).

Lacey and Barry are two of the most feared riders in the peloton and have been for the best part of a decade. The latter, 39, showed there’s plenty thread left on the tyre by taking Saturday’s equally testing stage into Kenmare. In fact, as Barry crossed the line, timekeepers set their watches rolling to see if he had usurped Shaw for the jersey, after the latter had taken it on Friday’s opening leg.