With three stages complete at Dornan Rás Mumhan, Cork teenager Willem O'Connor has been one of the revelations of the race. After finishing 2nd on Friday evening's stage, the Velo Performance rider missed the breakaway today but blasted across when the gap came right down.
And though his bridging to the winning move - with Rás Tailteann stage winner Tom Martin (Spellman Dublin Port) - took place just before the cat 1 ascent of Coomanaspig, the 18-year-old still had the legs to make it to the top of that climb first.
He told stickybottle his performance this weekend was a far cry from his ride at the race last year, as a second-year junior, when he was mostly "just hanging on". Just 12 months later, he has proven one of the strongest in the race and now sits 4th overall with two days remaining. So where did it all go right?
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O'Connor said his current form resulted from "a combination of a lot of things". He is currently on a gap year, having completed his Leaving Cert last year. This has enabled him to train more, and train abroad during winter, including with another top first-year Irish U23.
He now also has the benefit of lots of international racing as a junior - with Dutch team JEGG-DJR Academy - and in the first months of this year as an U23 - with Irish U23 team Velo Performance - under his belt. And all of those factors have conspired to bring his level on.
"I got a lot of extra miles in over the winter. Also with this team this year, it's the best set-up that I've been on, we're really being looked after. And we're all friends who are getting to race together, which is great. We've been on training camps together and we've been racing together abroad.
"I was also in Spain for a big part of the winter with Killian O'Brien. So I was pushing myself all winter and it's really nice now to get the rewards for that a bit. If I look back to this race last year, I was just hanging on, whereas fast forward a year and I'm now part of the racing. I'm able to attack and make my own race.
"Last year I was able to race a bit. But I know a lot more now than I did last year. And that's probably thanks to all the UCI racing I'm getting to do this year, which definitely helps. Last year I definitely wasn't at the level I'm at now, and I was also wasting energy on small things."
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So far this year with Velo Performance he has completed two UCI 2.2 stage races - both in Greece - racing against many of the top development teams in the sport linked to the biggest World Tour squads.
"When you have teams around you like that in those races, all the development teams are there; you learn from them. You see what they're doing, how they're riding as the team, and you take that with you. And you're trying to replicate that at home."
From Crookstown, near Macroom, the finish of tomorrow's stage 3 at Dornan Rás Mumhan, to Kerryman's Table, are home roads for O'Connor. He says he is determined to keep his performance going and to push on as hard as he can this weekend.
"I missed the original mov today," he said of a savage 122km into Portmagee. "So it was a bit stressful for a while. But myself on Tom Martin bridged over on the (Cools) KOM before Coomanaspig.
"The gap was coming down, we got it back to about 30 or 40 seconds I think. So the two of us went together on that climb and we bridged the across. The yellow jersey then got across after us, and that was it for the day."
Though O'Connor and Martin put in a strong ride, and were forced to dig deep, in that period of the race just before the Coomanaspig, that effort appeared to have no adverse impact on O'Connor. He flew up the brutish Coomanaspig, leading the breakaway over the top; a significant achievement in itself for an 18-year-old first-year U23.
"I probably felt the best on the climb," O'Connor said. "I was pushing on and then forced it over the top, I felt really good. I was dreaming," he laughed of leading the charge in a major Irish stage race over such a hard climb 91km into the day's action.
"But on the flat on the way back in there, I started to cramp in the legs. I think it was a fueling thing more than anything else. It was a bit of a struggle then. I had to limit my efforts. I didn't do any big sprints or anything. I didn't want to lock myself up."
In the end, he finished in 8th place, some 29 seconds down on the top three; Casper Rode (West Frisia), Daire Feeley (Burren CC) and Jamie Whitcher (Composite Black). O'Connor put well over a minute into the best of the chasers - those men who did not make the breakaway today - and now sits 4th overall, some 34 seconds down on race leader Whitcher.
