Darragh O'Mahony shows his delight at winning yesterday's stage (Photo: Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
By Brian Canty
Darragh O’Mahony said yesterday’s win in the Scott Bicycles Junior Tour of Ireland is the best of his career – but he and his Irish teammates are not done this week just yet.
The O’Leary’s Stone Kanturk man was in flying form on yesterday afternoon's 113-kilometre fourth stage from Ennis to Lisdoonvarna, making an early break with all the big names before going clear again around the halfway point after he crested the Cliffs of Moher KOH.
In that latter move were new race leader Joublot Marin Ferre (AC Bisontine) as well as Sandor Delgado Jnr. (North California Cycling Foundation), with Nicholas Castellano (Team Specialized) joining soon after.
The move worked because all four had either the stage or the yellow jersey in mind and O’Mahony played it to perfection.
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“We looked at the stage in detail last night and we made a plan because it was gonna be hard and it was gonna be wild,” said the Corkman.
“We planned to be in every move; me and Marc (Heaney) got away straight away but Hot Tubes started chasing and they caught us.
“Then there was another 10 or 15k of attacking; we split the group to 20 and isolated the yellow jersey, though he had one guy with him.”
Later, on the Cliffs of Moher, O’Mahony went again, more to take the KOM points than to establish a move but that’s exactly what happened, with Ferre and Delgado joining him.
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“We had 20 seconds for 15k but they gave up behind and the gap went out to 1:30.
“The French guy was going for yellow and the other guys knew it was a good move so they rode too.”
But the man who joined late was gassed from his efforts coming to the line, while Ferre was in trouble too as he’d ridden hard to help establish the gap.
And O’Mahony exploited that to full effect.
“David (McCann) told me the French guy was ahead of me by 14 seconds so when I went I was thinking of yellow. I only got four but it’s still a great day for me and the team.
“It was amazing, I’ve had a bad few days but this is the best.
“I felt good today so we decided we’d take the race to the Americans; we’ll have a good crack off it tomorrow.”
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