Conn McDunphy was absolutely exhausted at the end of his yellow jersey ride on Saturday at the Rás, when the Wicklow Gap proved to be his launch pad (Photo: Lorraine O'Sullivan)
By Shane Stokes
Conn McDunphy was fuelled by determination and rage on stage 4 of the Rás Tailteann. The Dubliner put in an inspired ride, banishing the memories of his agonisingly-close runner-up slot in 2024, when he finished 2nd overall but on precisely the same time as race winner Dom Jackson.
He hasn’t won this year’s Rás yet, but he took a huge leap forward towards that goal when he seized the yellow jersey of race leadership in Baltinglass.
He begins Sunday’s final stage with a solid 52 seconds advantage over Saturday’s stage winner Tom Martin. His display on Saturday was epic, but it was also very, very draining.
McDunphy rolled across the finish line, went about 50 meters up the road and then slumped to the ground, stretching himself out on his back and lying there for several minutes.
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He was moaning with effort and exhaustion, having given everything to seize yellow.
“I’ve never gone that hard in my life. At the start of the day I was really angry because they took out the Shay Elliott,” he said, referring to the difficult decision to remove the Glenmalure climb due to an unsafe surface on the descent.
“In the end it didn’t matter. I am lost for words. I went so deep, I was cramping everywhere. Coming in the road I got dropped from the group. I hope I did enough.”
McDunphy’s uncertainty was due to the time gained by Martin, who sat on the winning breakaway group for kilometre after kilometre due to his UK: Wheelbase Cabtech Castelli teammate Tim Shoreman starting the day in the yellow jersey.
Martin pounced with 5km to go, rocketing clear with Joshua Dike of the Spain: Natural Greatness Rali Alé team. He then outsprinted him to the line, taking the stage win and moving a lot closer to McDunphy.
Still, with almost a minute between them, things look promising.
‘Hats off to him, I owe him a pint’
For much of the week the big danger from the Wheelbase team was Shoreman. He was riding extremely well and underlined that when he triumphed on Thursday’s stage and then took over the yellow jersey on Friday.
McDunphy knew he needed to get rid of him on Saturday’s eight categorised climbs. Was he therefore worried when the Glenmalure climb was removed?
“Yeah,” he said. “Look, I am over 70 kilos. So climbing with the climbers, I am always a bit scared of climbs like that. But I know that I can go faster than Tim and go faster than a lot of the GC riders here uphill.
“So when the news came out I was worried, especially with a really hard finish, 20K into a headwind.”
Things ultimately worked out exactly as he might have wished.
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“I was glad that Foran really backed Danny [Danylo Riwnyj]. They paced they climb hard from the start. I know the Gap and I went on the steep part. I was in the wheels and people were really motivated to catch the breakaway. Then when I started riding I was just going full.
“From basically the hairpin on the Wicklow gap until the finish line it was as hard as I have ever gone before.”
What compounded the difficulty was that the other riders in the break knew that he had the most to gain, and therefore had to totally commit. They in turn didn’t give as much.
“I didn’t get many turns. The only person who helped me was a friend of mine, Ruari Byrne,” he said. “I really owe a lot to him, he did a lot of work between Wicklow Gap and the third cat at Hollywood. So hats off to him, I owe him a pint.
“When we got onto the N81 I got one or two turns, but rightly so everyone was sitting on me. It was my race to lose. I just did it as best I could.”
‘It was the fastest I have ever gone up the climb’
McDunphy has been trying to win the Rás for a long time. He’s a very strong competitor but things haven’t always gone to plan, with several big crashes over the years.
He’s kept working hard, racing abroad with his APS Pro Cycling team and putting in countless kilometres of training along the same Wicklow roads the race visited on Saturday.
Indeed he gave a staggering estimate of the amount of time he has gone up the day’s key climb.
“I train on those roads every week. I knew I had to go there,” he said of Wicklow Gap. “Luckily I had some strong riders with me and then we went really hard.
"It was the fastest I have ever gone up that climb and I have probably done it over 150 times. I definitely left it all out on the road.”
The Rás Tailteann concludes with a largely flat 140km stage from Carlow to Dunboyne. His big buffer means that things are looking favorable for McDunphy, but he doesn’t want to tempt fate.
“I don’t want to think about it yet, to be honest,” he said, when asked what it would mean if he were to take the final yellow jersey on Sunday.
“To win this race would be incredible. Years of trying. But let’s talk about that tomorrow. It is not done yet. That is the big thing for me. I have been very close to winning lots of big races and it all falls apart. So I don’t want to count my chickens before they are hatched.
Still, donning the yellow jersey is a huge thrill in itself, whatever happens today, Sunday.
“It’s special. Very special,: he said.
“If I was to win this it would mean a lot to a lot of people who aren’t here, even the people who are here. So hopefully I can bring it home.”
