Ireland’s Stephen Clancy attacked early on stage 2 of the
Tour of Oman today and spent most of the day up the road in a two-man move
despite the breeze that buffeted the riders.
“My body is pretty cooked now; two riders up the road on a pancake flat stage was a tough mission especially with cross-headwind the whole stage, but I was happy with the day out,” Clancy told stickybottle of being away for 140km.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been out front in a bike race, so I’m very happy that I was able to get up the road early and play my part. The winds were very strong today and that definitely affected our average speed out there. But there were only two of us and we worked very well together to stay away as long as we did.”
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Clancy’s
team mate Jan Dunnewind crashed
out of the race today while sitting 6th overall thanks to bonuses gained in the
stage 1 breakaway. The Irishman said it was a set-back for the team, though it
was good for Novo Nordisk to have had riders in the moves on both days.
“For
sure we’ve got the breakaway bug now and we’ll be trying again tomorrow, the
stage will be quite a bit lumpier than today, so we’ll see how it goes,” he
said.
Clancy is now aged 29 years and is in his tenth season with US-registered ProContinental team Novo Nordisk. He is now the longest serving Irish rider in the pro peloton as even Sam Bennett did not secure his first pro contract until 2014.
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On the 167.5km stage today from Naseem Park to Suhar Corniche, Clancy attacked from the gun and broke clear with Antonio Angulo (Euskaltel-Euskadi).
Just behind them, Mohammed Al-Wahibi if the Oman National
Team tried to get across to them. However, those efforts failed, leaving Clancy
and Angulo to combine in a two-man move for most of the stage.
After 16km, and with the sprinters’ teams content to let
them go, the two leaders had over 3½ minutes. However, the sprinters’ teams
then got on the front to bring that gap down a little and maintain it.
Fernando Gaviria’s UAE Team Emirates and Mark Cavendish’s Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl led the chase, reducing the leaders’ advantage to 2½ minutes after 50km as the Oman national team and Kaden Groves’ Bike-Exchange-Jayco began aiding the chase.
That was the way the gap stayed for a long time and with
about 50km to go the sprinters’ teams began picking up the pace again; though
Clancy and Angulo were really up against it with only each other for company in
the breeze.
With about 50km to go the gap was just below 2½ minutes
and over the next 20km the two leaders were gradually reeled in; the catch
finally made with 30km to go. That resulted in a bunch sprint at stage end,
which was won by Cavendish.
Clancy us now in his tenth season with ProContinental
team Novo Nordisk, which is founded on the principal of hiring riders with diabetes
in a bid to prove the condition can be managed and that those who have it can
live full lives.
In his second year out of the juniors in Ireland, and
just as Clancy began to emerge as one of the top cyclists on the domestic
scene, he was diagnosed with diabetes. And while that could have severely
limited, or even stopped, his cycling career, the condition instead led him to
his current employers.
Clancy began his tenure with the team at the start of the 2013 season and has been a pro rider with them ever since. He has raced all across Europe during that time and much further afield, including in the US, Canada, South Korea, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Dubai, Rwanda and now Oman.
