Power the master after super sprint

CIARAN POWER may have gone into this year’s FBD Milk Rás as the defending champion but he achieved his main goal for this year yesterday by landing a stage win in a ferocious sprint into Ballina to end an eventful 93-mile third stage from Clifden.

There was further excitement for Munster fans ­ many of whom had travelled from Cork as well as Listowel ­ when Eugene Moriarty snatched second place from sprint specialist Malcolm Elliott, a former points winner in the Tour of Spain and once a runner-up and big favourite with the fans in the Nissan Classic.

To watch a sprint like this is a privilege and to figure in it an honour in itself. The big group that had assembled at the front of the race after a day of mayhem in the bunch hunted down the long-time lone leader Mark Lovatt just over a kilometre from the finish and, once they entered the town, the struggle for positions began.