De Pauw pounces as McConvey bid for yellow just falls short

Moreno De Pauw of the Belgian national team used his track racing experience to sprint clear of a three-man breakaway group in the final 400m to take victory on stage five of the An Post Rás in Mitchelstown yesterday.

After an earlier escape had been reeled in with 10k to go, De Pauw jumped clear of the peloton on a slight incline with five kilometres to go.

With both riders just needing a single second to take over the race leadership, second-placed Belfast man Connor McConvey of the Synergy Baku team and Danish rider Ramsus Guldhammer were first to react and with four kilometres remaining the trio had eked out a handful of seconds on the chasing pack.

It wasn’t to be for the GC hopefuls, however, as De Pauw, sensing a possible stage win, stopped riding with a kilometre and a half to go and jumped the duo in the final 400m to take stage glory. Ironically, De Pauw opened a one second gap on his fellow escapees with the front of the peloton closing them down on the line meaning that they got no time on Polish race leader Marcin Bialoblocki and remained in the same positions overall.

“Myself and Guldhammer got away just over the top of a drag and we just drilled it to the line,” said McConvey after his late bid for yellow was foiled. “We caught the Belgian dude who was already away. He rode with us and then stopped with a kilometre and a half to go. That gave him enough to freshen up a bit and he jumped us on the last corner for the stage win. We would have given him the stage if he had just kept riding because he got a one second gap on us in the sprint which would have been enough for me to get the yellow jersey. But we gave it a good effort. We were close, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s still a few more days where anything can happen.”

For the third day on this week’s Rás, Mehall Fitzgerald (Visit Nenagh) sprinted into the best county rider’s jersey, finishing 22nd on the stage.

“I’m happy with that because with 2km to go I was about 40th,” said the 38-year-old former stage winner, returning to the Rás after a decade away. “In my head I said ‘Jesus I don’t know if I’m fast enough to beat these guys’ so I said I’d try and have a go from about a kilometre to go and see could I get six or seven lengths coming into the straight. But I wasn’t close enough to the front and I was suffering too much on the last drag. I just drilled it through the last few bends and ended up 14th so it was okay.”