The fourth stage of the FBD Insurance Rás saw yet another change in the yellow jersey, with overnight leader Mark Cassidy crashing out of the race but David McCann winning the stage and taking over at the top.
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2004 Rás winner McCann was part of a twelve-man break which went clear approximately 120 kilometres into the wet 156 kilometre stage from Corofin to Tralee, with Ireland team-mate Roger Aiken, former race leader Stephen Gallagher (Ireland An Post M. Donnelly Grant Thornton Sean Kelly), stage two and three winners Dean Downing and Chris Newton (both Britain Stena Line Rapha Condor Recycling.co.uk) plus McCann amongst the most notable names.
Newton had started the day two seconds ahead of McCann and with Cassidy being forced to retire due to a badly bruised arm, he seemed in line to take over as race leader.
However he punctured out of the move and while UCI rules stated that he would get the same time as the break due to the fact that the mechanical problem happened inside the final three kilometres, McCann was able to gain two seconds on the others with a late attack.
This netted him both the stage and the yellow jersey, the Belfastman ending the day level on time with Newton but ahead on points countback. It also made up for the third stage, when he broke clear with the Briton but finished second.
'I am really pleased,' he said after receiving the yellow jersey. 'It is great to get a stage win. I had good legs coming into the race. I was disappointed to lose yesterday but I knew my day would come if I kept working at it. Yellow is a bonus because I wasn't even thinking of the jersey, I was just going for the stage win.
'I knew the form was coming around and so my chance would come.'
McCann will start tomorrow exactly level on time with Newton. He felt that he could have had a bigger advantage had he had more food during the stage.
'The two of us seem to be the strongest here. I felt really strong, I probably could have put more time in if I had attacked sooner but I hadn't eaten in the last hour and I could feel that I was running out of gas, really. There was never a chance – the racing was so full-on that there was no chance to go back to the car.
'I was holding back a wee bit just in case, because if you push it too hard with no food, the batteries just run flat. It was just in the very last mile I got the chance to get away from the group and put some time into them.'
In contrast, Newton felt that he would have been able to control McCann had he not punctured. In that case, he would have ended the day in yellow.
'I punctured in the last three kilometres. I would have been marking David otherwise. He was the only one who was close on time. He's opened a gap on the rest of the field…it's a few seconds but it counts.
'I was feeling fine up until the point I flatted. The break didn't work very well, the group was pretty poor. Everybody kept sitting up. We had a minute, but could have taken two minutes if the group had worked properly. You don't know what they want out of it…if everyone had worked, they know that myself or Dave would be going for the jersey rather than going for the win.
'They [the others in the break] would have got a stage win on the cards but they lost out both ways. You can't teach people things like that, they have got to learn for themselves.'
Mark Cassidy had seized the race lead jersey yesterday, 25 years after his father – double Rás champion Phil Cassidy – took his own first yellow jersey.
It was a curious coincidence but while Cassidy senior went on to win that Rás, Mark had the disappointment of lasting less than a day at the top of the leaderboard.
The other riders in the peloton showed great sportsmanship in waiting for him to return after his accident, but he was later forced to pull out and get into the race ambulance.
'We were just going along in the bunch, moving quite fast on the right hand side,' he said after returning from hospital. 'I heard someone let out a shout and then I hit a rock in the middle of the road. I had no time to react and went straight over the bars, landing on my elbow.
'It was very disappointing, but I am also happy to have had the jersey for a day. It was hard for the team to lose it that way. I was enjoying fighting for the jersey, defending it that way.
'I'd say that everybody was disappointed, even the competitors. They stalled to wait for me to get back on. But if it is not broken, it should be back to normal in a couple of weeks.'
The main bunch finished 24 second back at the end of today's fourth stage and this further whittles down the list of possible winners. Five riders are within a minute or less of McCann's lead, while only a further fifteen are less than two minutes back.
Tomorrow's hilly 141 kilometre stage from Tralee to Skibbereen should further shuffle the general classification, and will show if McCann can be the first rider in this FBD Insurance Rás to defend his race lead.
