Tour of Ireland - Man On The Street Report
Written by: Myles Mc Corry
Mylesrants@aol.com
Fredrik Ericsson (Pezula Racing) Swedish champion in time trial and he was the strongest man on the roads of the second stage of Ireland’s only professional cycle race, but you wont see his name in the results. The stage started from a damp, Thurles this morning and 154 riders raced north to Loughrea, Co. Galway, over epic, West of Ireland roads for a distance of 155 km. After 20 km of random, fruitless attacking the bunch stalled and a loan rider Ericsson jumped off the front of the bunch. After another 5 km he had nearly 3 minutes but still no one thought he could possibly stay clear. The crew following the race never changed their minds until 110 km to go when the brave Swead still had over five minutes of a gap from the charging peleton. He pushed on over rough and freshly stone chipped roads and then there was a buzz around the cavalcade as the gap was 3.50 with under 50 km still to race. At the last sprint of the day he was still 2:40 clear which would leave it tight at being caught. Sadly once again the team of the young English rider and Olympian Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia) called up his soldiers and they lifted the pace covering 50 km in the last hour and catching the valiant Ericsson with barely 10 km to the line. From that point no one really stood a chance. A million things could have went wrong, but nothing did. He stayed fifth man back and his team did a magnificent job, keeping calm when David McCann ( Team Ireland) launched a flyer of an attack with 6 km left, getting 10 seconds before the blue avalanche swallowed him up. Into the finishing straight he didn’t even wait for Michael Barry to finish peel off from 250 he put his head down, got aero and got another stage. the teams 61st win of the season. I even toyed with the idea of sending in the picture from yesterday, as the winner gets more time to celebrate as the finish under the grey sky in Loughrea, a sharp turn after the line has them on the drops quickly. It nearly looks easy, yet Cav’s face said it all. Bloodshot eyes and grime /sweat wreaked, he had put the effort in not just in the last 200 meters but the final 20 km and it showed.
Mark Cavendish and his team deserved the victory. The yellow jersey suits the 23 year old, and it looks like it will be hard to shift off his shoulders powered by the almighty Team Columbia/Highroad.
Tomorrow sees the diminishing peleton head over 200 km on a flatfish course to Galway City. Diminishing from the usual few crash victims and illness including race favorite Daniel Martin (Garmin) Still over an hour after the broom wagon arrived, still no Chris Sutton (Garmin). Going to press the Australian is lost, MIA in the Irish wilderness. Can Cavendish sweep all before him?
Possiably….probably but with an even younger 20 year old Dutch pro Michael Van Staeyen (Rabobank) pushing him all the way to the line for second, perhaps not forever. The race finishes in Cork on Sunday after 950 km.
Stephen Gallagher, leader of the An Post sponsored, Irish professional team explaining himself to Sean Kelly, Irelands greatest ever cyclist.
Pictured this morning at the start of stage 3 in Ballinrobe – Galway Tour of Ireland: 202km.
Categories: Features, Races, Tour of Ireland
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