By Shane Stokes
Stage one Rás Tailteann winner Conor McGoldrick may be a British rider on a British team but, as his name suggests, he has firm links with Ireland. He will consequently take special pride in leading the race on Thursday.
“Both my parents are from Dublin and the family’s from all over [Ireland], really,” he told stickybottle after winning stage one into Birr on Wednesday. “So it’s been a race I’ve wanted to do for quite a while. I’ve lived in the UK my whole life but I spent many a summer holiday around Galway.”
McGoldrick is competing in the race with the UK Richardsons Trek DAS squad and was in flying form on the stage from Navan, winning the category three prime at Killeigh before taking off on the category one climb of Wolftrap mountain and overhauling the-then stage leader Damien Clayton of the UK Embark SpiritBSS team.
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“It was a really fast start, the first two hours were just nonstop attack, attack, attack,” McGoldrick recounted. “We must have averaged close to 50k an hour. And then probably with about 40k to the main climb a group of about 20 of us got away. We worked quite well and at the base of the climb I attacked to try and win the King of the Mountains jersey.
“I went over solo, I had a good gap so I thought I would press on. I got up the hill and then got caught by two others. We worked very well together and I took the sprint.”
McGoldrick triumphed ahead of Dan Gardener (UK: Embark Spirit BSS) and Joseph Laverick (Derry: Foyle CC) and, as a result, dons the first yellow jersey.
He is cherishing the moment. “It feels pretty special, pretty special,” he said. “It is the biggest kind of race I've done really, to date, so to be in the leader’s jersey tomorrow is going to be really special.”
