McCann’s hard miles pay off in Kerry climb

DAVID McCANN finally got just reward for his endeavours all week when he won yesterday’s marathon fourth stage of the FBD Milk Rás that took the riders from Charleville to Caherciveen with a first brief but testing visit to the Kerry mountains.

The 31-year-old Belfast man who has represented Ireland twice at the Olympics finished second into Oranmore and fifth into Charleville but yesterday it was third time lucky with a solo victory into Caherciveen and the green points jersey to highlight his consistency since the race began in Dublin on Sunday.

And he did it all his way, joining a breakaway group on the first category climb, then leaving them for dead on the descent and time trialling the 12 miles through Portmagee to finish 26 seconds clear of Dermot Nally, the stage winner into Charleville, who won the sprint for second place from Valentin Iglinskiy of Kazakhstan, with David O’Loughlin fourth.