Martyn Irvine says nobody remembers who was 3rd overall on the Rás last year; where he is now. He insists he won't win the race and only wants a stage win (Photo: Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
By Shane Stokes
Fourth on stage four into Newport and now up to third overall, Martyn Irvine has said he would gladly exchange the possibility of a podium finish in the general classification for a stage win on the An Post Rás.
“Who finished third last year?” he asked rhetorically when asked about the general classification in the Rás.
When the answer was not immediately forthcoming [it was the Canadian Nic Hamilton], he used that prove his point.
“Exactly. That answers the question,” he said.
“Even that crash yesterday that I was caught behind, I was happy about it as I was trying to lose time.
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“It sounds horrible, but I said then, ‘it’s meant to be, I will lose time and have a bit of room for the rest of the week’. However I am still in with a shout.”
Irvine starts today’s fifth stage in third place, one minute 49 seconds back, and is just 38 seconds behind second-placed Joshua Edmondson (An Post Chainreaction), who was with Team Sky last year.
He had been ninth overall before the stage but with several key riders missing the final break, both he and tenth-placed Ryan Mullen (An Post Chainreaction) moved up six places.
“I think it was the day everybody thought it would be,” Irvine said.
“We headed out the road and turned right after 20 kilometres and that is where it blew to bits.
Martyn Irvine's high overall placing and his amazing CV - which includes a world title on the track - has made him a marked man so far on this Rás (Photo: Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
“I was last man heading out the road, last man in the first 20 kilometres. But then I knew what was coming and I got the perfect position when they hit the crosswind.
“And that was the story. It was just the normal fight for position for the next 20k up to 40k, and then after that the front group was established. We were chasing.
“I don’t know what was going on behind, but everyone had a common goal. It was pretty fast in the first hour and a half.”
Irvine describes it as being “a weird day”.
“Once we joined then there was no incentive for anyone to do anything. In some ways I don’t like that; there was just dilly-dallying for a while.
“It grew from the back of the bunch too, a lot of guys got back up. It regrouped through Leenane, it was a big bunch then. Then after that it started racing again.”
The next decisive point came soon after that.
There was a drag that was complicated by a crosswind and when pressure was applied, splits happened once again. That proved to be the key moment.
“I was in the first 20 and 20 of us got away there,” he said.
“Then that was the mix. The common goal was to get rid of a load of guys, so An Post, me and Erick [team-mate Erick Rowsell]; we all did our fair share.
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Martyn Irvine takes stage 7 of the 2011 Rás from Tramore to Kildare while riding for Asia Giant Kenda (Photo: Lorraine O’Sullivan – Inpho)
“We rode thorough and stayed out of the wind as best we could.”
He said that they soon found themselves in a group racing for the win. There were 20 kilometres left and the attacks were being fired off left, right and centre.
Some of the moves were to attack the yellow jersey but Irvine insists that wasn’t a personal motivation of his.
“I don't see myself as a GC rider, so I was just ‘whatever you want to do, lads.’
“I was just following, I wasn’t doing any driving. I was trying to get away and the yellow jersey was chasing me down as he sees me as a GC threat.
“I told him to just forget about me, but he was not listening. Then a hundred things happened in the last ten kilometres.”
Irvine tried to clip away in moves but nothing worked out. That left eight riders in the hunt for the win.
But the number dropped to seven when last year’s overall winner Clemens Fankhauser miscalculated; accelerating hard up the inside of the group when there was a 90 degree sweeping bend coming up.
“It was a safe enough finish,” Irvine explained.
“But Fankhauser swung the wrong way, he went to go right at the bridge and we went left.
“That is how it finished, the four of us just followed each other around. It was a drag race up, the position didn’t change. So I kind of screwed that up.
“If I had known it was so decisive going around that corner, I probably would have fought a bit more to be second wheel.
“In my mind I am the biggest loser of the day as I wanted the stage result and didn’t get it. I am yet to stand on the back of that [podium] lorry.”
A stage winner back in 2011, Irvine is highly motivated to try to repeat that.
He acknowledges that he is high up on general classification, but sees that more as a result of the parcours yesterday rather than any big ambition in that direction on his part.
“I think it just came easy to me today… I am a bigger rider who is powerful in the wind, it suited me. It is a similar MO for the rest of the week.
“I don’t see why I can’t be there. Ask anybody, I love just farting around the back. I am either off the front or off the back.
“Maybe I’ll change my mindset later in the week. But I am not ruling out a stage win or a podium.”
But what about the overall? Does taking the final Rás title cross his mind?
“Honestly, that is not something I thought would ever happen to me, that I would be in that position,” he answered.
“I am too inconsistent – smashing it one day and being wrecked the next day. But I would love to be in that group of Rás winners; that would be class.”
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