The Irish team managed to rescue its general classification challenge from near disaster during a wet and crash-hit finale at Tour de l'Avenir today. With the Irish riders caught behind a crash, Archie Ryan and Darren Rafferty were thrown into a long chase to regain the peloton as the race was splitting up ahead of them.
In the end, while Ryan very nearly saw his shot at a general classification ride go up in smoke, he and Rafferty managed to get back in the remains of the main field. Other groups on the road were not so lucky a lost significant time, with Ryan narrowly dodging a bullet with Rafferty's help.
The other riders on the team - Dean Harvey, Adam Ward and Kevin McCambridge - were among the very large number of riders caught by a significant crash with about 60km which split the race. However, they had already played their part in positioning Ryan by the time the chaos hit on the 142.8km stage from Sainte Sévère sur Indre to Chaillac.
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As Rafferty and Ryan were chasing back on, a very strong group of riders broke clear off the front of the main peloton and survive until the finish, where Thomas Gloag (Great Britain) won the stage. However, the stage winner's time gain on the group Ryan finished in was just 36 seconds in the end, meaning the Irishman remains in striking distance of a strong general classification ride.
The crash occurred in heavy rain with about 50km to go, with McCambridge one of the fallers and Harvey and Ward blocked by what was a very large pile of crashed riders. While Ryan and Rafferty just about stayed upright, they came to a stop on top of other riders. And though they quickly got going again, the crash had caused a split in the bunch.
Rafferty and Ryan managed to get into a chasing group, with the French and Belgian teams and Rafferty riding full gas for 40km in a bid to regain the peloton.
A breakaway which had gone clear after the intermediate sprint, about 10km before the major crash, managed to stay clear to fight it out for the honours on the day.
In that group was eventual stage winner Gloag along with Sebastian Kolze Changizi , Adam Holm Jorgensen (Denmark), Enzo Leijnse, Rick Pluimers, Axel Van der Tuuk, Casper Van Uden (Netherlands), Michel Hessmann (Germany), Mats Wenzel (Luxembourg) and Soren Waerenskjold (Norway).
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That group caught a three-man breakaway which had been clear for much of the stage and was comprised of Rafael Pereira Marques (Luxembourg), Maximilian Schmidbauer (Austria ) and Thomas Schellenberg (Canada).
That made for a 13-man breakaway, which was trimmed down as the race wore on. While the first second of the peloton was no more than 30 seconds behind the breakaway for much of the finale, the second and third sections of what had been the main field were much further back.
The gap between the breakaway and first section of the peloton – which Ryan and Rafferty eventually got back into – went out to 50 seconds at one point, though that gap was reduced by the finish.
Inside the final 10km, where torrential rain fell again, Gloag forged clear of the breakaway with Hessmann and Jorgensen for company; beating the two of them on the slightly uphill finish in the rain. The second section of the breakaway – was brought home by Van Uden – was just 29 seconds down and numbering only four riders.
Ryan placed 18th on the stage, among 31 riders some 36 seconds down on Gloag. Rafferty was 47th and was caught a little by a split at the back of the first second of the bunch, finishing 16 seconds down on it.
Harvey and Ward were 104th and 105th at 3:53 while McCambridge was 135th at 13:49. However, while all three were cut from the bunch due to the major crash, they had the consolation of knowing Ryan and Rafferty were able to keep the team’s general classification hopes alive.
Gloag, who rode for Trinity Racing this year before securing a stagiaire with Jumbo-Visma, now leads the race overall. Ryan is now 17th, among 29 riders now 36 seconds down ahead of the 27.9km TTT tomorrow. Rafferty is 42nd at 52 seconds.
