Stephen Clancy has lost and then broken his race bike in China. But while also getting caught behind a crash, he has ridden well in the first five of nine stages at the Tour of Hainan.
By Brian Canty
Ireland’s Connor McConvey is lying in a strong 15th place overall, just over a minute down, after five stages of the Tour of Hainan in south China.
The only other Irish rider in the race, Limerick’s Stephen Clancy of the US-based Novo Nordisk Pro Continental team is also riding well. He is 1:28 down overall in 72nd place.
The 2.HC ranked race is the same category as the likes of the Tour of California, which illustrates the quality of the field the Irish duo are up against.
It’s just the eighth ever edition of the race but with a prize fund in excess of €250,000, it’s hardly surprising to see the likes of Belkin, Crelan-Euphony and VC La Pomme Marseille making the journey from Europe.
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As expected, there’s a strong Asian contingent in the race with several Chinese and Hong Kong representative teams also making up the 140-rider start-list.
McConvey’s Synergy Baku Cycling Project is right in the thick of things, with the Belfast man their highest placed rider overall.
The 2013 An Post Rás runner-up has been active throughout the week, though the parcours has not been to his liking thus far; with many flat stages in the opening half of the race.
McConvey has been 14th (at 21secs), 72rd (at s/t), 64th (at s/t), 110th (at s/t) and 98th (at s/t) on the five stages thus far.
But with time bonuses on offer, it means he’s 1:04 down on race leader Moreno Hofland of Belkin. There are three Belkin riders in the top four; Theo Bos and Tom Leezer the others.
McConvey’s compatriot, Clancy is in his debut season with the Novo-Nordisk team – a squad comprised entirely of diabetics – and has also gotten stuck in this week.
But for getting caught in the wrong side of a split in the bunch on the opening day, he’d be much better placed overall.
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Clancy lost 45 seconds on stage 1 but since then has finished in the main bunch each day and he’s less than a minute and a half down on Hofland.
He said it was a case of “so far so good” with four stages remaining.
“We’ve five stages and almost 800km done and after 18 hours of racing I'm certainly feeling it at this stage. And we still have four days and 650km to go!”
“It's a long tour and easily the longest race I've ever done. So far it's been dominated by Belkin and there’s some pretty decent climbs over the next few days so that should spice things up a little bit.”
Getting to the tiny island was a challenge in itself, explains the 22-year-old.
“It took us three flights and 24 hours travelling which turned into an overnight in Singapore, followed by 48 hours travelling and then on top of all that my bike never made it.”
“I had to race the first two stages on the spare bike which wasn’t even my size. I got my own one back for the past three stages but I crashed inside the last 3km today coming into the sprint and broke it so looks like I'll be back on the spare again.”
There remains a lot of climbing to be done on the island of Hainan over the next four stages.
Stage 6 features two category 2 climbs in the second half of the course, while tomorrow’s stage has the only category 1 climb in the race; and that comes inside 20 kilometres.
The penultimate stage features one category 2 and two category 3 climbs while the final stage is a flat one, so a bunch sprint is the likely outcome there.
The race covers a total distance of 1,400 kilometres. We’ll keep you up to date as the week progresses.
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