Belated birthday boost for attack-minded Aiken

ROGER AIKEN (Louth Safe Cycling), who turned 24 three days earlier, got a belated birthday present yesterday in the form of his first ever stage win as the FBD Insurance RAS got under way with an 84 mile stage from Dublin to Emyvale.

And there was a surprise race leader as well when Morten Hegrebert from Norway took custody of the yellow jersey on sprint bonuses along the way to leading overall by just one second. Aiken is second after finishing second on the stage, seven seconds ahead of Yorkshire’s Kevin Dawson with Britain’s, Kevin Dawson, fourth.

This quartet had left a long suffering leading group that had battled through torrential showers, driven by an ice-cold wind, that came thundering down soon after they had left Dublin in balmy sunshine. At the end of it all there were no wild scenes of celebration. The riders who made it on to the podium, the first three along with Eugene Moriarty, who claimed the mountains jersey and the leading young rider, Menno de Boer from the Netherlands, could hardly speak, they were so cold.

Aiken first made the headlines during the winter when he won the national cyclo cross championship, ending the winning sequence of Olympian, Robin Seymour, who was going for a 14th straight win, and the conditions he experienced back then might have stood to him yesterday.

There was drama right from the off. A crash five miles in sent two riders to hospital, while a third, Morgan Fox, finished despite a suspected broken collarbone.

After 12 miles a 10 man group escaped and included in it were Corkman, Timmy Barry (Tipperary Dan Morrissey), Listowel’s Eugene Moriarty (Meath Cycleways), a Czech, an Estonian, two Welsh riders including Yanto Barker, Hegreberg, the 2003 winner, Chris Newton, and Andrew Roche, who won in 1997.

They were joined by the 2001 winner, Paul Manning, and after that Aiken got across to them along with Stephen Gallagher of the Grant Thornton Ireland team, evergreen Malcolm Elliott, Evan Oliphant from Scotland and another Norwegian Morten Christiensen. Paul Manning, who won in 2001, and Kevin Dawson would later join them but Gallagher was one of the riders who lost contact and then Manning hit a pot hole while putting his bottle back and suffered injuries that sent him back through the main bunch to Dr. Phil Brady with his participation in today’s stage in doubt.

Four kilometres from the finish Chris Newton attacked, split the group, and was joined by Aiken, Hegreberg and Dawson. Aiken launched a courageous attack from a long way out for the biggest win of his career to date.

“It was beyond all my expectations,” said Aiken who finished 26th overall on his first attempt last year. “But the opportunity came and I took it. Four of us had slipped clear after a lot of jumping with five or six kilometres to go when Dawson attacked. It had been bitterly cold out there.”

He donned the Irish jersey for the first time in this year’s Tour of Lankawi and is just back from a six week training camp at the Sean Kelly Academy in Brussels.

Malcolm Elliott, a former professional rider on the Continent and winner of a number of stages in the Nissan Classic in Ireland, returned to win a stage last year at the age of 43 but yesterday he was happy to sit back and allow Dawson the liberty to get involved in the sprint.

“He is a better prospect as regards general classification. I just came here to win stages,” he said.

But Manning will evaluate his situation this morning, badly bruised, battered and complaining of a pain in his hip while Morgan Fox was due to undergo a more detailed examination of his damaged collarbone last night.

Today’s stage will take the race from Emyvale to Tubbercurry, a distance of 99.4 miles, with Hegeberg attempting to hang on to that slender one second lead.