By Shane Stokes
He’s been described as ‘probably the strongest rider in the race’ by Ireland teammate Dillon Corkery, and as ‘an animal’ by stage two winner Conn McDunphy (USA: Skyline-Cadence), and Liam O’Brien heads into the final two stages of the race level on time with the yellow jersey.
“We’ll try whenever we can,” O’Brien told stickybottle at the end of Friday’s third stage. “I felt good yesterday and good again today. Usually I build into the races, and two more days to come. So I’m all in.”
The 19 year old caused panic for race leader Dom Jackson and his Foran CT team on Friday when he and Corkery—the defending Rás champion—got away on the category 3 climb of Doneraille, just under 100km into the stage.
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Together with the rider who almost won overall last year Conor McGoldrick (UK: Richardsons Trek DAS) and Warren Ewan Scanlon (Spain: Brocar Rali Ale), they opened up a solid advantage over the main bunch, with O’Brien becoming race leader on the road.
He comes from Fermoy, close to the race finish, and was psyched to try something.
“It was fast all day. A fast start out of Kenmare. There were moves going and we were getting riders in it. I was just making sure I was in the moves that I needed to be in and not spend too much energy.
“We tried to make a move through Doneraile and we got a gap, me and my teammate Dillon. The lads did a really good job to leadout and stuff. But we were marked men, it was never going to be easy.
“We got caught just before Mitchelstown. But it was quite a long way out, I don’t know if we could have held it anyway. But they worked well together [in the chase], I heard.”
A ten man group went clear closer to the finish, with teammate Odhran Doogan in there and going on to finish third behind Cormac McGeough (Mexico: Canel’s Java) and John Buller (Ireland: Spellman Dublin Port).
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“They put quite a bit gap into us straight away, because there were a lot of riders in it,” O’Brien said. “We had a rider in it so we could just relax, pretty much. We were ready if it came back for the sprint, but it didn’t come back.”
O’Brien is a first year senior and is riding the Rás for the first time. He’s learning as he goes and tuning into the peculiarities of the event.
“It can be kind of an uncontrollable race. You always have to be switched on,” he said. “It’s not like there's big teams that take control. Everyone's just kind of…everyone works to help each other on the teams, but they're nearly all riding for themselves.
“You have to make sure you're in the moves, because they're always jumping. It’s very aggressive racing, I find.”
One thing that helps is the guidance of road captain Corkery on the bike and former world track champion and past Rás stage winner Martyn Irvine from the team car. That’s been a big help.
“It's brilliant,” O’Brien said of Irvine’s input. “He always has the plan ready and everything's going smoothly this week.
“Dillon has been always by my side this week, helping and guiding me. And the other three boys as well, Liam Crowley did a fantastic job yesterday and Dean [Harvey] and Odhran [Doogan] today to make the split before the break.
“We can execute the plan well, because we have the team to do it. So it's quite a strong all around team and the staff is amazing.”
With two stages left he, and they, are going to chase victory.
“We’ll try whatever we can,” he promised.
