Connor McConvey is well placed going into the final weekend of the Rás and he and his team are hopeful he can bag the big outright win (Photo: George Doyle)
Former Rás winner David McCann has said he is hopeful today’s climbing showdown on the penultimate Rás stage in Co Wicklow can go in favour of fellow Belfast man Connor McConvey, who he is managing this week.
McConvey, riding for new Irish-Azerbaijani team Synergy Baku, is second overall on the same time as yellow jersey Marcin Bialoblocki (UK Youth) and Rasmus Guldhammer (Denmark Blue Water) in third.
Bialoblocki’s team has ridden very well since he took the jersey. And with their man one of the best riders in the UK who can climb and sprint and everything in between, it will be a very good ride by any of his rivals to dislodge him.
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He also leads the points classification, a key factor that will guarantee the overall win for him should he remain equal on time with McConvey or Guldhammer after the two stages to come.
However, McConvey is an excellent climber and has finished 4th and 7th in the two Rásanna he has ridden. His attitude and condition this year have been exemplary and he is now so close to a win that he would be disappointed with anything other than taking that final yellow jersey.
Apart from the leading trio, the top 15 overall are covered by 2:31 and with today’s stage holding in store a climbing fest of eight categorised climbs – two of them the cat 1 ascents of the Wicklow Gap and Drumgoff-Shay Elliott – any of that leading 15 could win the race.
The Pole in yellow is very much in charge and McConvey and his team need to put the UK Youth men on the ropes as early as they can and decisively attack them during any moment of weakness.
"It’s going well,” said McCann at yesterday’s stage finish in Carlow.
“Tomorrow (Saturday) the climbs are not the hardest in the world but they’re hard enough for the strong guys to show what they’ve got. We’re in good shape. It’s good competition.”
“Bialoblocki’s a really strong guy. Guldhammer is a class act also. Even the Rapha guys just behind aren’t so slack so we’ll see what we have in the tank.”
“It’s a bit of special race. The tactics are a little bit different. Having been there and done it you realise how it works and Connor too; he’s done it before so he’s well experienced. Hopefully we can keep the success up for two more days.”
The team was established only at the end of last year and into the early months of 2013. It’s a UCI Continental team, with Irish man David McQuaid as general manager and three-time Olympian McCann as an invaluable director.
It has already done very well in the first portion of the season. It took stages and held yellow in races such as the Tour of Thailand, Tour d’Azerbaijan and Tour of Taiwan.
McConvey came close to a stage win in Azerbaijan – where he won the climbers’ classification – and was one of the main animators of the Tour of Thailand where he was second on a stage and finished 5th overall.
The team is on the crest of a wave and in time could become an alternative to An Post-Chainreaction for emerging Irish talent. The queue of young Irish riders hoping to go international is growing in the past few years thanks projects like Cycling Ireland’s Talent Team 2020 sqauds and the Nicolas Roche Performance Team for junior riders established by Roche and former top domestic rider Philip Finnegan.
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Indeed, when Synergy Baku’s Rico Rogers took the team’s second Rás stage win in a row into Carlow yesterday, McQuaid jokingly shouted to An Post-Chainreaction manager Kurt Bogaerts: “Hey Bogaerts, two-two,” a reference to the fact both teams have won two stages apiece of the six in the Rás thus far.
However, all that will mean little to McConvey over the next couple of stages as he hopes to make a full-on assault for Rás victory. After yesterday’s stage, where he was 11th, he sounded very happy with how the team was riding.
“Christophe (Schweizer) helped me today as well as helping Ricco,” he said.
“I just tagged onto the back. I got a bit boxed in the last few hundred meters but it was just really to stay in contention. Bialoblocki is ahead of me on points so I’m not going get that back unless he comes in at the back of the bunch one day which is unlikely. I have a bit of a buffer on Guldhammer so it’s just about staying up there.”
The stage winner Rogers, a 25-year-old from Melbourne, said it was far from plain sailing for him on the road to Carlow.
“I was struggling on the hills a little bit. We hung in there on the hills and worked hard to come back. We did what we could for Connor and made sure he was in a good position and lastly we looked for the stage win and came away with it.”
“We had our eye on controlling it enough for Connor and were focussed on getting him in the best place he could. I felt good for a stage so we pushed pretty hard. Christophe and Connor did a good lead out and we’re pretty confident in our abilities.”
Martun Hunal of the Czech Republic Sparta Praha team was third overall last year and second in the climbers’ classification. He holds the climbers’ jersey going into this year’s final weekend of racing. Currently 7th overall at just 48 seconds, he cannot be ruled out for the win.
“I’m very happy to be back in the jersey,” he said yesterday of recapturing the climbers’ classification lead into Carlow.
He feels he can take the outright win and is definitely within reach and capable.
“My team worked very hard for me to get me into a good position for the mountain sprints and I’m really glad to be leading again. Tomorrow’s stage is very hard. But I think I can do it and win it overall.”
However, Bialoblocki is the man they all have to dislodge and he is not known as ‘The Machine’ for nothing. A very popular figure on the Rás in recent years, he has appeared relaxed in the lead this week.
“A very nice day, like a Saturday ride with the local team; everything went very well,” he said of stage 6 yesterday at the finish in Carlow.
“My teammates did a good job for me and a few other teams. There was no danger for me. We kept it steady and then people started attacking and we brought back the break. I was feeling very good today.”
“I was thinking about winning the stage but in the end it was very dangerous. One of the An Post guys swung into me in the sprint and I had to brake and then it was too late. My team did a job. It was very easy in the beginning and for most of the day with a bit of racing in the end.”
“Tomorrow looks like it will be a hard day. It’s hard to say what will happen. There are a few people that will be dangerous, they are very good climbers but my team are always strong.”
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