Newton nicks yellow on the line
He took the jersey following a ferocious sprint with Malcolm Elliott into Tubbercurry and he vowed to defend it to the bitter end.
The 32-year-old Middlesbrough man has all the qualities needed to claim a second RAS victory.
He won an Olympic silver medal in the pursuit in Athens last year when he teamed up with 2001 RAS winner Paul Manning.
The pair also won teamed up to win the pursuit title at the world championships in Los Angeles in January, which was his second gold in a world championships and he also has a bronze from the Sydney Olympics.
But his most important weapon could be his knowledge of the race which he has contested five times while yesterday’s was his fifth stage victory.
“We did not really want the yellow jersey so early. But the opportunity came and I took it. I really wanted to win the stage.
“Now it is going to be very difficult to defend it because this is a tough race. We have only four men and it is difficult for four to control 200 riders.”
He will depart from Lisdoonvarna today with an eight second lead over Malcolm Elliott.
After his involvement at the business end of the first stage and then yesterday’s contribution, it would be dangerous to write Elliot out of the script for Sunday’s finish in The Phoenix Park.
He, too, has vast experience of the Irish roads. As a professional he was a multi stage winner in the Nissan International Classic and, after coming out of retirement last year, he won two stages in the Ras including the final stage.
Yesterday he appeared to have a third stage victory in his pocket 50 metres from the line but he had a problem changing gears, lost momentum and could do nothing more when Newton slipped past to win by the narrowest of margins.
It was a dramatic finish to an exciting final hour of a gruelling 99 mile trip from Emyvale much of it fought out in torrential rain and a vicious headwind. Early skirmishes saw Listowel man, Eugene Moriarty, steal the limelight, sprinting clear early on to win the first mountain prime at Corraghduff.
Then, over 70 miles further on, he won the big mountain prime at Bellavalley Gap that would give him outright custody of the Polka Dot jersey.
It was on the descent from Bellavalley Gap that the drama began to unfold. A seven man group assembled at the front, which included some familiar faces. Philip Cassidy, the teak tough Meathman who won the title twice, was there along with the other 43-year-old, Malcolm Elliott. Eoin Whelan (Louth Safe Cycling), Gabriel Rasch from Norway, defending the interests of the overnight leader Morten Hegreb, Gary Dodd from Surrey, Donald Reeb from the US Guinness team and Zach Bell from Canada completed the group.
When Conor Murphy from the Grant Thornton Ireland team and Chris Newton joined them, the real race began.
The Norwegian then punctured and his departure sparked off the chase at the front of the main bunch which was organised by the yellow jersey but by now it was all too late as the leaders built up a lead of two minutes.
With the pace so intense someone was going to have to make a supreme effort and it was Cassidy’s attack 10 miles from the finish that finally split the group.
Newton’s first attack was countered by Cassidy but when he launched a second less than two miles from the finish only Elliott could respond both went on to contest the sprint.
Conor Murphy overtook Cassidy for third while another veteran, John Tanner from Yorkshire, led in the yellow jersey group, that included the remnants of the other break, 2mins 21secs behind.
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