The Tour of Azerbaijan will have prepared Mark Dowling, Ryan Sherlock and Connor McConvey for the Rás; the queen stage is tomorrow
By Brian Canty
The three Irish riders in the Tour of Azerbaijan finished safely in the main bunch on today’s third stage from Qabala to Qabala.
The stage was an out and back route featuring one category two climb midway through while two sprint points either side of that had to be negotiated.
Connor McConvey (Synergy Baku) and the Polygon Sweet Nice duo of Ryan Sherlock and Mark Dowling were equal to the day’s exertions, coming over the line a minute and a half down on the day’s two-man breakaway.
McConvey’s teammate and the opening day winner Christoph Schweizer took the bunch sprint and third on the podium. He also leads the points classification from Vitali Popkov (ISD Continental Team).
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The Irish trio were glad of today’s relatively easy leg as tomorrow’s penultimate stage has three climbs in the final third, with the race finishing on the hors categorie at Tedris Merkezi after 115 kilometres.
There Dowling will be looking to show his climbing prowess and the Meath man remarked that today’s stage had been “easy” while he also said his legs were coming around after a period of illness lately.
“I now feel strong enough to ride hard in the mountains and I'll hopefully salvage something from the race,” he said.
His teammate Sherlock agreed in the main, saying: “I was off in a few moves today and am feeling much better. I didn’t get in the move that stuck but after that it was an easy enough day in the bunch. Tomorrow is the big one so we’ll look to do something there.”
The Synergy Energy Baku Team of McConvey look well placed to try to take back the yellow jersey they had earlier in the week, with Olexsandr Surtkyovch just 51 seconds down on race leader Serhiy Grechyn (Konya Torku Seker Sport).
McConvey said he tried all he could today to get in the break - indeed the team did their best and he said for the first 50km they were at the head of affairs, dictating matters in their ‘home’ race.
“It was pretty fast from the gun,” he said.
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“We really gave it everything to get in the break and eventually Dan (Craven) made it in there. The roads were heavy and hilly. Dan didn’t stay in the break so we turned to trying to win the bunch sprint and we did. We had to keep Olexsandr up there on GC ahead of tomorrow’s stage.”
“We have a podium place as it stands so we’ll be looking after him. There are five guys close up on GC and with three hard climbs tomorrow on such a short stage it is going to be really aggressive,” he added.
Stage 3 Results: Qabala-Qabala (165km)
45th Connor McConvey (Synergy Energy Baku Cycling Team) @1min33secs.
59th Mark Dowling (Polygon Sweet Nice) @ @1min33secs.
74th Ryan Sherlock (Polygon Sweet Nice) @1min 33secs.
Overall GC after Stage 3
36th Connor McConvey (Synergy Energy Baku Cycling Team) @9mins 51secs.
68th Mark Dowling (Polygon Sweet Nice) @12mins24secs
75th Ryan Sherlock (Polygon Sweet Nice) @14mins 12secs.
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