Ireland's Conor Dunne takes first stage of An Post Rás from daring escape into Longford

Conor Dunne (Tipperary Carrick Iverk Produce) takes Stage 1 of the 2013 An Post Rás into Longford Town ahead of Mike Northey of Node4-Giordana (Photo: www.blackumbrellaphotography.com)

National U23 Time Trial champion, Conor Dunne has won the opening stage of the An Post Rás into Longford this afternoon, out-sprinting his breakaway companion Michael Northey (Node4-Giordana), after the two riders had done an excellent job to stay clear. Dunne also takes the leader's yellow jersey.

They were hunted down by a number of late attacks from the bunch, including one move that contained Sam Bennett of the An Post-Chainreaction team.

Dunne, riding the Rás for ‘Tipperary Iverk Carrick’ and Northey had gone clear just inside the 20km to go marker. They built a gap of around one minute very quickly and held that most of the way to the finish, where Dunne took the victory and the first yellow jersey of this year’s Rás. Roy Eefting of Koga Holland was third. The two leaders had a gap of 30 seconds at the finish.

“I'm really, really happy," said a delighted Dunne at the finish.

"I've wanted to get a win this season. I've come close and I felt I have been going well but just needed a bit of luck. It all came together today."

"When the gap was still there with one kilometre to go I knew one of us would get it. He's a strong guy (Northey), and I wasn't sure what would happen. I had strong legs, believed in myself and gave everything."

How it unfolded

The opening stage of this year’s race was run off at break-neck speed, with 95km covered in the first two hours of racing. Before the field got that far though, there had been plenty of attacking right from the start in Dunboyne, Co Meath.

Tim Mertens (Belgium) and Colin Robinson (Meath Stamullen M. Donnelly) were the first to jump clear, with Robinson having been going very well on home roads this year.

However, with 185-rider nervous bunch hunting them down they didn’t get very far.

Other Irish riders in some subsequent early moves in the opening 20km were Conor Dunne (Tipperary Carrick Iverk), Ronan McLaughlin (An Post-Chainreaction) and the very much in form Roger Aiken (Louth Prague Charter).

Aaron Buggle (Rapha Condor JLT) put in a strong solo move just a few kilometres from the first prime of this year’s race, some 41.3kms into the stage at Athboy. He took that prime and a three second bonus with another very strong Irish rider Peter Hawkins (IG Sigma Sport) in second taking a two seconds bonus and Martin Hunal (AC Spatrt Praha) taking third and a 1 second time bonus.

From the fragmentation at the head of the bunch caused by the prime contest came the first really dangerous move of this year’s race. Small groups clipped away to eventually form an 18-man move and by the 55km point they had a handy 55 seconds over the bunch.

In that group were the following Irish riders: Aaron Buggle (Rapha Condor JLT), Roger Aiken (Louth), Sean Downey (An Post-Chainreaction), Con Collis (UCD CC), Conor Dunne (Tipperary-Carrick Iverk) and Connor McConvey (Synergy Baku).

However, the group was perhaps too big and far from being a move that looked like it could steal some really big time on the opening stage, they were caught by Ballyjamesduff and the field was all together again with 85km remaining to the finish in Longford.

The next move of substance came when another 13 riders got clear but never built up much of a gap and were caught with around 35km remaining. However, among the last to get across to that were McConvey and Hawkins, underlining their tags as Irish pre-race favourites.

As the race hurtled into the final 20km, another Irish man Conor Dunne attacked and went clear with Michael Northey (Node4Giordana), they got 55 seconds very quickly. With 10km to go they had 1:03 on the bunch and what seemed like a fighting chance of making it all the way. Chasers Ray O'Shaughnessy (Louth) & Michael Nicolson (Scotland) got well clear of the peloton in pursuit of the two leaders but were caught before getting closing to them.

At the 5km to go marker Dunne and Northey still had just over 50 seconds and it was looking very good for them.

Sam Bennett (An Post-Chainreaction) and Dane Jasper De Buyst then took off from the bunch after the two leaders with around 4km remaining. However, they were soon caught, leaving the two leaders being chased by the huge bunch in the last couple of kilometres into Longford.

An Post Rás Provisional Results

Stage 1: Dunboyne to Longford

1, Conor Dunne (Tipperary Carrick Iverk) 2:48:55