Brilliant Bevin blitzes field to snatch race lead
The 23-year-old rising star, representing the New Zealand national team, blitzed the field at the end of 160 kilometres of racing and had almost two minutes on a group of four chasers by the finish.
He pulled clear in the last hour with UK-born Irish international Dominic Jelfs (Madison Genesis). The pair built a lead of almost one minute on a four-man chase group that emerged behind after a break of 17 had spent much of the stage up the road.
When the two leaders reached the climb at Ballinalacken, 15 kilometres from the end, Bevin dropped Jelfs and struck out for home.
Alessandro Pettiti (Italy – IDEA) was second with Clemens Fankhauser (Austria-Tirol) in third on a day that saw some major changes in the overall standings, and overnight leader Robert-Jon McCarthy (An Post Chainreaction) fall well down overall.
“I’m really proud of that, it was just one of those days where the dice rolled my way and I had to make the most of it,” said Bevin.
“It’s my first Rás and my first time here in Ireland and I have to say, this is very close to the best win of my career. To come into the finish solo is an amazing feeling, it was a tough, tough day here today. The roads are hard, the climbs are sharp and there was a lot of wind as well to make it even more difficult.
“I had a team-mate in the break all day so I had no obligation to ride in the peloton and bring it back, but when it did come back together, I had fresh legs and just committed to attacking.
“We’ll have a hard week trying to defend the yellow jersey because the standard is so good but we’ve a strong team and the boys are up for it.”
It was a special day too for Kerryman Sean Lacey who won the county rider prize for the first time in his long career. The Aquablue rider, a full-time maths lecturer in Cork IT, is riding his 13th Rás and has come close to winning it on numerous occasions.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” said Lacey. “I’ve been so close in the past to winning it, been top 10 a good few times but Páidi O’Brien beat me to it one year, Paul Griffin another year and Eugene Moriarty as well so to finally get it is a huge relief and it’s a great day for me and my team.”
Indeed, the Aquablue team were once again to the fore all day and had a staggering four of their five-man team in the day’s 14-rider break.
They were; Olan Barrett, Damien Shaw and Bryan McCrystal while another county team, DID Electrical Dunboyne, had Mark Dowling and John Mason in the move, dispelling the notion the race is too hard for county men.
But though that break gained around a minute and 40 seconds at most, it was brought back, but Lacey said the county riders have done themselves proud so far.
“We showed we can compete, Sunday it was the same. All our team ever want to be is aggressive, no matter what race we do and it showed what can happen today when we adopt that approach. Okay, maybe towards the end we were suffering but the gulf is not that great and we’ll be definitely trying again tomorrow.”
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