Darren Rafferty of the Irish national team spent stage 2 at Tour de l’Avenir on the attack today, with his group gaining 3:30 at one point. However, with the breakaway group numbering just three riders, the prospect of them making it all the way was remote.
While Rafferty and the others were eventually recaptured, paving the way for a bunch sprint, it was a very good showing by the 19-year-old first-year U23 rider. His presence in the breakaway came after a very hard opening phase of the stage during which there was a huge fight to make the escape.
Archie Ryan was also active on the front in those early stages, marking the danger men in the general classification in the event they may get clear and ride away. Rafferty also finished the stage with the combativity prize.
Advertisement
All of the Irish team – Rafferty, Dean Harvey, Ryan, Adam Ward and Kevin McCambridge – finished in the bunch today at the end of 152.8km of racing from Benet to Civray.
After two crashes took Ireland’s Liam Curley out of the race yesterday, McCambridge punctured and crashed today, though managed to get back into the peloton both times.
Following relentless early aggression on the stage, a promising looking six-rider breakaway got clear and it appeared that group may be given some leeway. However, after gaining approximately 20 seconds, the bunch reacted strongly and the escapees were recaptured.
Rafferty soon stepped up and forced the decisive move about 25km into the stage, with the Irish rider managing to get clear alone initially. He gained some 35 seconds while leading the race alone before reinforcements came out of the bunch to join him.
Felix Stehli (Switzerland) and Carson Miles (Canada) worked together to bridge the gap, of about 45 seconds, to Rafferty to make it three out front. Once that small breakaway was formed, they began sharing the workload and their advantage over the peloton went out above 1:30. As the plugged away out front, the gap continued to grow and was soon just over three minutes.
Related News
But with about 55km down and just under 100km to go the gap began to stabilise at three minutes. The peloton seemed unwilling to extend any more rope to Rafferty and the others. But that changed again and the leaders soon had 3:30 on the bunch before dropping again by 30 seconds and once again holding at three minutes for a prolonged period.
And with 50km to go, the bunch had been steadily chipping away at the leaders’ advantage, which was now down to just under two minutes as the Colombian and Mexican teams were most active in the chase.
Inside the final 30km, and with the average pace at 46km per hour for most of the stage, Norway, Australia and the Netherlands began massing on the front of the peloton.
While Rafferty’s breakaway still had a gap of one minute at that stage, it looked for a long time like they would be reeled in, which they were. Rafferty was recaptured with about 15km to go.
While Stehli persisted out front the longest of the three original breakaway men, and was joined by counter-attacker Lorenzo Milesi of Italy, they held a gap of just seconds on the finishing circuit with 10km to go.
And though they were not caught until 1.5km to go, the inevitable recapture came, paving the way for a bunch sprint won by Casper van Uden (Netherlands). Sebastian Kolze Changizi (Denmark) was 2nd and Sam Watson (Great Britain) was 3rd with all of the Irish riders in the main bunch.
Yesterday’s stage winner Søren Wærenskjold (Norway) continues to lead by a single second from all of the riders who finished in the bunch yesterday and today. Tomorrow’s 154km stage from Civray to La Trimouille is another flat one, but fatigue now starting to build a little in the bunch, a bunch sprint is far from a certainty.
