Darren Rafferty's path to the World Tour is now an inevitable one, but the 20-year-old Co Tyrone rider has this year been searching for a big win, to add to his other achievements, and today he got it. In one of the most impressive performances by a young Irish sports person you will see this year, Rafferty has been crowned overall winner of Giro Ciclistico della Valle d'Aosta-Mont Blanc (2.2U) in Italy.
Having taken the yellow yesterday on the penultimate stage - a brutal feast of climbing over 172.5km concluding with a summit finish at Fénis - Rafferty was in defence mode today with his Hagens Berman Axeon team; trying to retain yellow and land the biggest prize.
And while the man closest to him in the general standings this morning - France's Alexy Faure Prost (Circus-ReUz-Technord) - went down fighting today, he simply could not do enough to get back on terms with the Irishman in yellow.
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Today's finale took the riders some 99.7km from Valtournenche to Breuil-Cervinia, including 20km of continuous climbing to conclude. The stage was won by impressive British rider Joshua Golliker (Equipe Continentale Groupama-FDJ), who also won stage 2 and then led the race for two days before being displaced by Rafferty on yesterday's monster day of climbing.
Golliker lost significant time yesterday to Rafferty - who was 2nd on that stage - and slipped down the standings to 12th on GC. That meant he was 16th overall starting today, some 11:54 down on Rafferty. So when the British rider went up the road to win solo by just over two minutes today, the battle for the final overall win was behind him.
And that fight essentially came down to two men; Ireland's Rafferty and France's Faure Prost, who started the day 2nd overall and at 2:44. Faure Prost - who also climbed at the front of the Next Gen Giro last month on the Stelvio stage with his Irish rival - managed to give Rafferty the slip today, though it was too little too late.
The Frenchman finished the stage in 5th place, some 2:44 down on the winner. Rafferty was just two places - and 22 seconds - behind him. He sailed up the finishing straight in celebration knowing he had the overall win well and truly wrapped up.
In the end, Rafferty claimed that overall victory by 2:22 from Faure Prost, with Mexico's Isaac del Toro (AR Monex Pro Cycling Team) in 3rd, some 2:57 down. The gaps in the overall opened yesterday when the riders faced two very steep climbs, one directly after the other, to finish at the top of the second ascent.
That stage went to Sergio Meris (Team Colpack Ballan CSB), who was 1:08 up on runner-up Rafferty after the Irishman dropped all of his general classification rivals, putting minutes into most of them.
Rafferty's overall victory follows on from his 2nd place overall at Next Gen Giro last month and his victory in the U23 TT at the National Road Championships, promoted by the club he started with - Island Wheelers - in Co Tyrone three weeks ago.
