David McCann looks happy with his day’s work after Thursday’s opening stage of eight in Taihu
David McCann has posted some very strong performances in recent days to lift himself to fourth overall at the Tour of Taihu Lake; the UCI 2.1 eight-day race in China.
On the opening 140km stage on Thursday, the RTS Racing pro from Belfast was one of a number of riders to benefit when the field fragmented despite an anticipated sprint finish. Much of the damage was done by McCann himself.
He finished sixth on the stage just three seconds behind winner and Czech national champion Milan Kadlec (Dukla Praha).
With a gap of 40 seconds back to 10th and 1:05 to 20th, McCann had already put himself in a strong position overall in what is his last race as a professional.
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The second and third stages on Friday and Saturday finished in bunch sprints, with McCann maintaining his sixth place overall, though the gap to the leader Kadlec had grown to 16 seconds thanks to time bonuses.
The fourth stage today, Sunday, was a 150km leg during which the race split leaving a 35-man group to contest stage honours. With a couple of those well placed overall missing the split, McCann is now 4th overall at the halfway point.
He told stickybottle he had been going very well at the Tour of Hainan – a nine-day UCI HC race in China that finished just last weekend. However, he blew from the decisive six-man breakaway on the only mountain stage just 1km from the summit, thus losing his chance of a good overall result.
“I was really angry at myself in Hainan to blow up like that,” he said.
“But I had good legs so even though there was only three days between the two races, I came here to Taihu pretty motivated. It’s more than likely my last ever UCI tour so that helps too.”
While Taihu had been billed as mainly a race for sprinters, McCann decided at the outset to be very aggressive and try and disrupt that anticipated pattern.
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“There’s nothing in it for me if it comes to sprints every day so on stage 1 I just raced super aggressively and finally managed to drag a group away. I did far too much work and was a bit flat at the end and there were some fresher legs in that group.”
He added with windy conditions and a flat course the order of the day for stages two and three, the sprinters were always going to excel and so it proved with two bunch sprints.
“Stage 4 today had three 50km laps with some beautiful crosswind guttering sections and one small hill. The race blew apart on the last lap and I made the lead group when some of the other GC guys didn’t so I’m up to fourth overall now. I need three seconds to move into 3rd, I’m seven seconds from 2nd, and 16 from the lead.”
McCann said his crash earlier in the year in Korea, when he almost lost his thumb, was still affecting him.
“I’m not interested at all in getting into the mix in the crazy sprint finishes,” he said.
However, given the age of some of those around him, he is not feeling his own age too much.
“Today’s stage was won by Yuri Metlushenko who’s 36, the leader Kadlec is 38 and the 39-year-old, me, is 4th. I still have never managed to be the oldest guy in a race though. Kam-po Wong is here and he’s four days older than me - on his last race too.”
The An Post Rás T-shirts are everywhere; spotted in Lake Taihu, China, this week with David McCann
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