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.

Alas, it was Harry Sweering of the West Frisia team who wore yellow starting out yesterday morning, albeit by a handful of seconds, with Shaw and Barry his closest challengers.

So it was little surprise to see those two riders animate yesterday’s leg-breaker over six categorised climbs, and 142 kilometres in relentlessly difficult conditions.

The race appeared to be going to plan for the Aquablue duo when a two-man break clipped away early on, Western Lakes’ rider Charlie Prendergast accompanying Hillard Cijnte (Ruiter Dakapellen) for over half the stage.

But Shaw was feeling strong and wasn’t happy watching matters unfold up ahead, so as soon as he hit windswept Valentia Island, he opened the taps and hammered it up the KOH there, before disaster struck.

On the descent, his chain slipped down to the small ring — essentially meaning he could ride to the finish in third gear, at best. But he didn’t let that curtail his chances.

A four-man group had moved off the front by now, Paidí O’Brien (Planet Tri), George Harper (Felt Colborne), Conor McIlwaine (Irish U23) and Mike Ashurst (Biketreks RT). Ashurst would have taken the race lead but Shaw, despite being hampered by that mechanical problem, put it to the back of his mind and rode into a gale-force wind, bridging the gap. Noot content with sitting on the back of that four-man escape, he drilled it to the finish to try open up a gap on those behind.

The gap to the chase group began to swell as no one seemed too intent on chasing, but eventually, sensing Shaw would stay away to the finish with the four others, and create an insurmountable gap ahead of today’s final stage, several of the UK-based teams as well as the Dutch, went all out to hunt down the break.

But it wasn’t to be, and Shaw, with the help of the four others, rode his heart out to the finish. O’Brien, the most naturally gifted sprinter on the amateur scene in Ireland, took the sprint from Harper, with McIlwaine in third. But the damage was enough to see Shaw regain the time lost from the day before, retake the yellow jersey, and pole position for today’s last stage.

Little wonder he struggled for words at the finish.

“It didn’t look good for me when I had the mechanical... I heard this big clunk and couldn’t believe it. I didn’t panic, I just knew I had to be cagey and save my attacks for the climbs,” is how he described his mid-race crisis.

“I wasn’t paying attention to the yellow jersey at that point,” he added. “I just knew the Dutch lads were on the front for so long and that they’d be tired, even if I was reeled in it would have been the platform for Timmy to attack. I knew I’d be in trouble coming down the descent because I couldn’t get the speed I’d have liked but hey, I got the yellow jersey, so happy days.”