By Shane Stokes
Clad in the yellow jersey of race leader after the podium presentation, Dom Jackson had an air of contentment and slight disbelief in Sneem on Thursday.
Third on Wednesday, he started the day hoping to take over the race lead, but being far from certain it would happen.
“Expecting it, definitely not,” he told Stickybottle, speaking of yellow. “But we kind of knew there was a possibility of it. And the team just worked all day to try and make that happen.
“The first 50k or so it was like looking at who’s going up the road and just trying to make sure that no real big GC threats were just given a free pass. It wasn’t just us trying to control, I think every team was a bit shocked yesterday that a three man break had managed to do it.
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“So I think everyone was a little bit more on edge. And then up Ballaghasheen, the [category one] climb that goes super steep at the end, Team Ireland were three abreast on the front, and it was a driving crosswind. Me and one other Foran rider were right behind that, he did absolute jobs for me today. He ate so much wind to put me in in a good position, along with all the other Foran riders.
“I’m just super happy to be in this jersey.”
The Richardsons Trek DAS rider competed in the race last year, finishing seventh overall. He returned to Ireland earlier this season, netting second, third and fourth on stages of the Dornan Rás Mumhan and taking a fine second overall.
He was familiar with some of the roads because of that, and with a difficult day of six climbs in store, hoped that the two riders who had finished ahead of him on stage one would lose ground.
That’s indeed what happened, with Alex Pritchard (UK: Richardsons Trek DAS) and Paul Kennedy (US: Team Skyline-Cadence) both suffering on the tough terrain and conceding time.
“The whole stage was brutally hard,” he said. “The climbs were even harder. Especially towards the end. I think maybe because I was in the break yesterday as well, I just felt so much fatigue in my legs.
“And Irish racing feels like it’s just attack, attack attack. Sure, you can follow five attacks. And then the next one goes and you are like, ‘I’ve got nothing in my legs now.’ So it just really adds that extra dimension of just being super hard.
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“For it to be 180 odd K with 2000 meters of climbing or whatever today was and to still be in the mix at the end is great. I’m over the moon.”
However as happy as he was at the finish, he said he was seriously worried in the finale. Irish riders Liam O’Brien (Ireland: Team Ireland) and Conn McDunphy (US: Skyline-Cadence) attacked after the category two climb of Coomakista and gained over a minute and a half.
They had started the stage just 32 seconds behind him, and he thought it was game over.
“I was confident the jersey was gone,” he said. “With about 30k to go, the pipe dream of being in yellow was like, ‘no, it’s not happening today.’ My teammate had completely worked himself over to try and make it happen. Then I was taking a pull, and I think everyone in that front group knew what I did yesterday and just weren’t prepared to work with me at all.
“I would try and get it going, turn round and everyone’s like, ‘nah, sorry.’ So the gap just grew and grew and grew.”
He had to dig very deep in the finale, saying that all the riding had left him vulnerable.
“It was really only on this final circuit where we sent it up the hill [that the gap came down]. People were just rolling insane attacks up the hill, and I was like the last rider to crest over that hill. Then the descent was stupid fast.
“I don’t know if there’s any footage of it, but you’d see me absolutely swinging on the back of the group trying to get past the finish line. But yeah, it was awesome.”
Things couldn’t have been more tight at the end with Jackson, O’Brien and McDunphy ending the day completely level on time. The deliberation about who would wear yellow went to countback of stage placings, with Jackson emerging best by virtue of his third place on day one and 13th on stage two.
With things so close, he said they would work out how best to approach things later on Thursday.
“I’ve not thought of it just at the moment,” he said of the likely tactics. “We will have a big discussion with the whole team this evening and figure out a plan. But I think most teams will be plotting something.
“My guess is that most other teams will try to ping some moves up the road, so it might be a bit of controlling or either getting someone else in one of those moves. There are a lot of guys on the same time, maybe a couple of seconds back, so it is still all to play for. That’s a good and a bad thing.
“But it is super exciting to have yellow even if I am only in it a day. It’s great to be in it at all.”
