Healion looks certain to claim Rás win
He took the yellow jersey after finishing a close second to Martin O'Loughlin (Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers) in the Valentia Ring stage on Saturday, gained a 58-second advantage in yesterday morning's time trial and finished 1:50 ahead of O'Loughlin in the afternoon criterium in Cahersiveen to lead by 2 minutes 48 seconds.
Paidi O'Brien highlighted the strength of Ireland's other professional cycling team, the Martin Donnelly/Sean Kelly squad, when he got up in a ferocious 14-man sprint to claim the Cahersiveen criterium stage.
Nobody was more deserving of a stage win than the Corkman who rode brilliantly to get across to the break on Friday, missed out narrowly on Saturday but bounced back to dominate the criterium.
If Friday's crash removed some of the leading contenders, the 102-mile Valentia Ring stage on Saturday sorted things out at the top.
Thomas Rabou from The Netherlands, set out in the race leader's yellow jersey but his defence had fallen apart by the time they arrived on Valentia Island. A small group escaped, including Rory Wyley and his Dan Morrissey Carrick Wheelers' team mate Timmy Barry - carrying the scars of the big crash outside Tralee the previous day. Another Carrick rider, Martin O'Loughlin, got across and, when they reached the island, a 24-man break had been established.
With Conor Murphy (Murphy and Gunn/Newlyn) driving them over the climbs that punctuated the route, they established a comfortable cushion on the main bunch who were now struggling to get a chase organised.
Eventually the AltiPower team went to the front when Murphy, last year's runner-up, gained an advantage of 1 min 20 secs 50 miles from the finish. When they reeled him in, Healion and O'Loughlin escaped with Ferdi Van Katwijk jumping in to look after the interests of the race leader.
He was subsequently dropped by the two Irishmen as Rabou, in a solo effort to get across to the leading group, crashed and ended up back in the main bunch.
Up front Healion and O'Loughlin went to work.
Back in Killorglin, O'Loughlin drew on his local knowledge, grabbed the initiative going into the corner on the approach to the church and held it to the line for his fourth stage win in this event.
Two of those wins were on the infamous Conor Pass stage while he also won in Nenagh some years ago.
Murphy and Gunn dominated the individual time trial. Healion gained 58 seconds on O'Loughlin while Andrew Roche, who was 11th in the time trial at the Commonwealth Games, finished nine seconds down. Surprise packet, Simon Kelly, who hails from Galway, took third ahead of Micheal Concannon, to go third overall and he closed the gap o O'Loughlin yesterday evening.
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