Darren Rafferty (Hagens Berman Axeon) said he was "in a world of pain" in the final couple of kilometres of the Stelvio climb on stage 4 at the Baby Giro yesterday. But he was very happy with his performance; placing 3rd, moving up to 2nd overall and also taking the combined classification jersey.
The 19-year-old really showcased his climbing talents on one of the hardest days of racing on the U23 international racing calendar; putting in the kind of ride that World Tour contracts are made of. He told stickybottle he was very satisfied with producing a big performance on a major stage, adding it was very different to talking about producing target outputs of power for set durations while training.
"It's the first time I felt in the shape to race at the front," he said of racing on such a big mountain and having the ability, and opportunity, to ride for himself. "It's one of the big climbs in Italy, a lot of people know it, and it's a pretty long one; the last 50k was uphill, it's not an easy day. It was a cool race, it's a nice stage to say I've done and to finish on. It was a good day."
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While he made his debut at the Baby Giro last year, and also rode Tour de l'Avenir, he was riding both races in 2022 for team leaders who had a chance of a top general classification position. That meant he approached the high mountains in those races very differently than yesterday, when a completely new experience unfolded for him.
"Last year it was a lot more suffering than it was trying to go for a result myself. Obviously in the Giro, we were in such a good position, I was more than happy to do the job I was doing for the team, and it got us the overall win, which was great," he added of riding for team mate, and overall winner, Leo Hayter at last year's Baby Giro.
Yesterday, having started 9th overall, Rafferty emerged at the front in a 12-man select group on the final climb up to the finish line. That soon reduced to 10 men. And with about 5km to go, after a flatter section gave way to steeper ramps and the attacking started, he was among a group of just four at the front.
Eventually it came down to three; Rafferty, Norwegian Johannes Staune-Mittet (Jumbo-Visma DT) and France's Alexy Faure Prost (Circus-ReUz-Technord). As the altitude went over 2,000 metres and the riders passed the 2km to go marker, the attacks began from the lead trio. Rafferty lost contact with the other two in the last kilometre, as Staune-Mittet beat Faure Prost in the sprint for victory, with the Irishman 3rd at 11 seconds, fighting all the way to the line.
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"I'm pretty tired, it was a tough day, it was the first day I really felt fatigue," he said of the race now with four stages done of eight. "I think I was fighting a losing battle a bit (in the final kilometre). I was in a world of pain and (Staune-Mittet and Faure Prost) were starting to press on. I didn't really have the legs to go with them.
"Then they were cat and mouse for about 100 meters and I closed the gap a touch and sort of held the (lost) time. And when they sprinted for the finish, I just had no sprint legs at all. I was trying to make it to the line just as quick as I could. I was pretty empty for a few minutes, I had to take a minute to get myself gathered again. I went pretty deep, but I recovered not so bad."
Having told stickybottle a couple of days ago he was handling the racing and training load much better this year than last season, and insisting he was not going to put undue pressure on himself on his race, he explained last night he went into the Stelvio stage simply to do as well as he could.
"I wasn't planning on 2nd or 3rd or whatever. I was hoping for a top 10, I thought that would be realistic. But I knew the legs were coming good in the last two Italian one days I did at the end of May. I just wasn't getting the results I wanted, but I was feeling good, performance-wise, in the races. I knew it was coming but I just had to keep some confidence that a decent result would come. I'm still missing a win but I'll take a 3rd for the moment."
Rafferty said he was near the front of the bunch at the start of the Stelvio yesterday, thanks to his teammates, and he rarely looked back. He sat no further than fifth wheel in the group from the bottom of the climb to the top,
"I come around a couple of hairpins and I could see 'okay, the group looks smaller, the group looks smaller'. Then it got to 12 riders and it was like that for a good while," he said, with the finale starting in earnest with about 5km to go as the attacks began. It started to hurt and then it was down to the last four or five. And I was just hanging on from that point, from about 2-3k to go. I knew I had a good chance of a result so I was just going as hard as I could."
And now sitting overall, just 19 seconds down on leader Staune-Mittet, and with a decent cushion on the rest of the field, what are his general classification chances and hopes for the next four days?
"We have to take it day-by-day now, we have a really strong team here this year but there's still half the race to come, if not a bit more. The GC can still change, stage results can change it, breakaways can go that maybe you weren't expecting. So I'm just going to go day-by-day and hold on to 2nd for as long as I can."
While yesterday's stage was the queen stage of the race, Rafferty said the penultimate stage, on Saturday, could be harder. If features three tough climbs in immediate succession, with the finish on the top of the third ascent. While none of the climbs will be as long as the Stelvio, Rafferty noted the stage was 50km longer than yesterday, with 1,000m of additional elevation gain.
"There will be a big shake up again, especially with tired legs and a week of racing already done," he said. "It's just one day at a time and hopefully I'm good when the time comes. You can easily talk about the (power) numbers, and training, and you can do it for such a length of time; this data and the other. But I suppose at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, it's the result crossing the line... Today was a good day, and a nice stage to do it on."
