Eoin Morton (fourth in line) in the near stage-long breakaway on the opening day of the Rás today. When it split in the final 20km he was to the fore. However, a fast chase in the bunch brought it all back together (Photo: Mark's Photo Blog)
By Brian Canty
For a while on the opening stage of An Post Rás into Roscommon today, UCD’s Eoin Morton was beginning to think he could be one of the big winners and stay clear to contest the win.
The emerging domestic rider made the day’s decisive break along with nine others - fellow county men Aquablue’s Bryan McCrystal and DID Dunboyne’s Fraser Duncan among them. And when he attacked with the former and Davide Ballerini (Team IDEA 2010 ASD) with less than 20k to go, things were looking good as they began to gain time.
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But some furious chasing from behind and almost 100 kilometres of riding in the break took their toll on Morton and the others and they were reeled in with around eight kilometres remaining.
“It was alright, the break was steady, it was okay actually,” said Morton this evening.
“We got away after about 50k, there was just a lull in the bunch and I just bridged as the break was establishing, it was happy days.
“We were out of sight out of mind. I just saw the break was riding away, and I jumped across a gap of around 30 seconds, any more than that and it was gone.
“It was raining hard so I said I had to get out of there and get up the road because it’s safer. I said it’d be better up the road; maybe risking losing time and energy but better than losing skin in a crash.”
His thinking was well founded, with a number of crashes back in the bunch taking down his team mate Ian Richardson and ending the race of another team mate Anto Walsh who is out with concussion.
“I was wondering why my team car took ages to come up. I was getting fed by neutral service but I later found out the team car had to look after the boys.”
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The rain poured down all day and Morton said it was a struggle to see at times.
“There was one stage we were all covering our eyes from the rain it was coming down so hard, you couldn’t ride with glasses.
“It was a hard day because wherever you were there was wind; the roads were tough, just bumps coming out from nowhere and not much shelter. It must have been hell back in the bunch.”
When he got clear of the breakaway, he said he was entertaining thoughts of making it all the way.
“We were very unfortunate not to stay away. Myself and Bryan McCrystal and the Italian guy were away with about 8k to go and we thought we could do it. We extended the gap on the bunch but we got pulled back because so many were driving it.
“I was gutted not to get a jersey, obviously being a county rider it’d be great to pick up anything. I was a little bit disappointed but getting into the break at all is now an achievement for us guys. I’ve only been cycling three years so it was great.”
With just one stage of eight completed, he said he would take the next few stages as they come and not do anything silly.
“I’m not going to target the general classification,” he said.
“For me it’s too much to ask for myself; too much stress. One puncture and all your goals are gone. If I’m wrecked after stage five or six and I lose time I couldn’t really care. I’ll just treat it like eight races.”
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