Milk Rás victory is a dream come true for McCann

DAVID McCANN finally earned himself a place among Irish cycling's legends by claiming victory in this year's FBD Milk Ras, fulfilling an ambition he harboured since he was runner-up to Tommy Evans eight years ago.

The race may have ended yesterday in the Phoenix Park, but the result was decided on Saturday when the 31-year-old Belfast man claimed his second stage win and took the yellow jersey off the Slovenian Valter Bonca.

The preceding days had seen Bonca, a 36-year-old professional who rode with two of the best-known teams in Italy, hanging on desperately to the jersey he had worn since winning the opening stage into Trim.

It appeared nobody could prevent him wearing it all the way to Dublin, but the stage from Carrick-on-Suir, across Mount Leinster, proved too far much for him.

However, it was McCann and not David O'Loughlin, who was just three seconds behind Bonca, who came to challenge for the lead.

Although it appeared O'Loughlin would inflict the damage, he sacrificed his own chances of victory in the interest of his team-mate.

O'Loughlin had opened up a 50-second lead crossing Mount Leinster and appeared poised for victory but, once again, Bonca reeled him in. This time, though, he had McCann on his wheel.

"I followed Bonca up the climb and I could see it took him quite some time to get up to David so I knew he was not as sharp as he had been earlier," McCann said. As soon as David was brought back I attacked. I had been descending well all week so I took a few risks and opened up a good lead." That lead went up to a minute before Dermot Nally (Galway) and Anthony Malarczyk (Wales Stena Line) left the chasing group to close it down.

Back behind, Bonca was waiting for O'Loughlin to make a break, but instead of attacking, he stayed back and the Irish team were able to isolate the yellow jersey from the remainder of the Slovenian team.

"The guys on the team were able to isolate Bonca from his team mates by keeping the pressure on them and I got a comfortable cushion," McCann recalled. "With myself and David up there the plan was to attack and get some time into Bonca. In the end it was difficult for David because he was so close to the yellow jersey and ended up having to sacrifice his chances.

"He played a very good team role. They all worked very hard and it worked out well in the end."

Team Manager Frank Campbell admitted that it had been difficult to tell O'Loughlin with eight kilometres remaining that his chance was gone. "But I would hope that he will come back again and win this race," he said. "We worked out a plan. We knew that O'Loughlin had only three seconds to make up and if it came down to it he could have nipped away late in the race and taken it. Once McCann got away the important thing was to isolate Bonca and David O'Loughlin played a major role in helping the other members of the team to do that."

Malcolm Elliott (Yorkshire Murphy & Gunn) won yesterday's big bunch sprint in the Phoenix Park. After crossing the line, he crashed into an official car for his second accident of the week following a crash he won the stage into Mitchelstown.

The ice-cool Elliott, who won three stages in the Nissan Classic in 1987 and was second overall to Sean Kelly the following year, came out of retirement last year and is now in line for Olympic selection at 42.

McCann, who represented Ireland at the Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney, also enhanced his hopes of making it to Athens with his victory.

"I was very happy to get the win at last. Eight years has been a long time, but there were other races in there as well," he said, reflecting on how he sacrificed his chances of victory in 1996 when he finished 28 seconds behind his team mate Tommy Evans.

Kerry won the county team title for the first time since the legendary Gene Mangan led them to victory in 1956.

Ireland Thorntons Recycling won the international team title for the first time in four years.