Not one of Team Sky's sprint lead-out men, Philip Deignan drops back to the cars - jackets in both hands here and one in his mouth - to help the team effort on the road from Armagh to Dublin.
Sunday May 11th, Stage 3: Armagh to Belfast (187km)
By: Philip Deignan
After my Norwegian roommate Edvald Boassen Hagen forced me to watch the Eurovision song contest in our hotel room before I went to sleep last night, my Austrian teammate Bernie Eisel came in for a bit of stick about the winning entry as we got ready for the stage start in Armagh this morning.
With another flat stage into Dublin ahead of us, our aim today at Team Sky was to get our sprinter Ben Swift into the best position possible in the final kilometres.
Once again, Bernie, Eddy and CJ Sutton were to help position Ben in the finale, with Eddy responsible for leading him through the final chicane with about 300m to go.
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I was pretty close to a really big crash just outside Julianstown, with around 40km to go today. But thankfully I was on the other side of the road and managed to avoid it, unlike the pink jersey Michael Matthews and about 20 others.
From talking to Michael about it after dinner this evening, he said that there was a rut along the hard shoulder, which suddenly went from tarmac to gravel and it caught a few people out on that side of the bunch.
A stall in proceedings to allow the fallen race leader regain contact, and another crash coming out of a roundabout with 35km to go, gave the day’s four early breakaways a bit of a lifeline but we had them within touching distance in the final 10km.
My roommate Eddy came down in that second crash when the road narrowed in on exiting the roundabout and somebody touched wheels.
As I said yesterday, I’m not doing the lead-outs here so I try to do whatever I can on these types of stages so the guys gave me their jackets to bring back to the car with about 30km to go.
When you get two or three jackets you have no problem but when you have nine to carry you soon run out of places to put them and I found myself riding around a roundabout outside Swords with four in each hand and one in my mouth.
Looking back, if one of those jacket sleeves had gone into my front wheel I could have gone down like a ton of bricks, so it’s not something I’d recommend doing at home.
When I went back through the cavalcade, my Team Sky car wasn’t there so the Orica GreenEdge team car came up and I handed them in the window to their directeur sportif Neil Stephens.
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Today was definitely a more hectic finish than yesterday. There were a lot more corners in the city which made it a bit more hectic.
Even though Ben had a bike change in the last 20km he almost pulled off the stage win today in Dublin and was only beaten into second in the last few metres.
Philip Deignan's Team Sky teammate Ben Swift almost pulled off a stage win in Dublin, only being pipped by points leader Marcel Kittel (Argos Shimano) on the line.
The guys did a great job to get him into position, with Eddy leading him into the last chicane despite hurting his shoulder in that crash.
Unfortunately Marcel Kittel came from nowhere to win the stage, the big German just getting around Ben on the line.
Though Ben was pretty disappointed afterwards, it shows he is going well and I’m sure it won’t be long before he wins a stage on this Giro.
I’ve been waiting to ride these stages in Ireland ever since they were announced but I have to admit that racing here has exceeded my expectations and it’s been a roller coaster of emotions for me.
To go from racing abroad for the last 10 years to come home and get such a huge reception as I did at the team presentation on Thursday really took me aback.
When I got to the start of the team time trial in Belfast there were so many people I knew there that it really felt like I was at home in Letterkenny.
This morning in Armagh, I was mobbed at the start again and tried to make an effort to sign as many autographs and pose for as many pictures with people as possible.
Thanks a lot to everybody who cheered, clapped and shouted my name over the weekend, especially the people from Donegal and Letterkenny who made the trip to Belfast and even to Dublin today.
The support and attention I’ve had the last few days is something I’m definitely not used to and I’ve really enjoyed it but from tomorrow onwards I go back to being just one of the regular guys in the bunch.
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