An Post-Chainreaction being introduced to the crowd in Liverpool; Irish riders Jack Wilson and Ryan Mullen second and third from left.
There were no Irish names on the podium yesterday evening in Liverpool after the opening stage of the Tour of Britain, nor even in the top 10.
But the Irish nonetheless made their presence felt in the finale, even though it did not work out this time.
With four very different riders in the race in the shape of Ryan Mullen and Jack Wilson (An Post-Chainreaction), Sam Bennett (NetApp-Endura) and Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) – the opening circuit race was an occasion when Bennett would most likely shine.
The only Irish related news during much of the stage was the presence of Mark McNally in the four-man escape that would dominate the stage; the Briton riding for the Irish An Post-Chainreaction squad.
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A really quality rider, McNally’s escape may have been caught well inside the final 10km, but he still amassed climbers’ competition points along the way and took that classification jersey into today’s stage 2.
Just as McNally and the other three he was with were mopped up, the sprinters’ trains could be seen getting organised for the mass sprint to the line that was always going to settle the 130km kermesse-style opener.
Mark McNally of An Post-Chainreaction speaks to the media in his climbers' classification jersey after stage 1.
Bennett’s NetApp-Endura was clearly backing him to the hilt and with exactly 5km to go to the finish, they moved to the front in a train formation with the Irishman on the back of the line.
Their stint on the front was punctuated by some serious pulling by Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and Lasse Hansen (Garmin Sharp), who were trying to set up their sprinters Ben Swift and Tyler Farrar respectively.
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Bennett’s train continued their work for their sprinter and with just under 2km remaining Irish champion Ryan Mullen could be seen bursting his way up to the top of the bunch alongside the blue train.
He was working to get An Post sprinter Shane Archbold into position and as he completed that job he swung off, leaving his two team mates to try and finish the job.
But in the end, NetApp-Endura and An Post-Chainreaction got swamped, with Marcel Kittel (Giant Shimano) pouncing to take the stage.
Bennett could only manage 12th, and looked like he sat up when he knew the win or a podium sport was gone from him. But, like the other Irish in the race will have plenty of opportunities in the week to come.
All four Irish finished on the same time as the winner yesterday.
Sept 7th to 14th: Tour of Britain
Stage 1: Liverpool (130km)
1 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Team Giant-Shimano 2:16:35
2 Nicola Ruffoni (Ita) Bardiani CSF
3 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Omega Pharma-QuickStep
4 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin-Sharp
5 Ben Swift (GBr) Team Sky
6 Markus Barry (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team
7 Daniel McLay (GBr) Great Britain
8 Heinrich Haussler (Aus) IAM Cycling
9 Nikolay Trusov (Rus) Tinkoff-Saxo
10 Enrique Sanz Unzue (Esp) Movistar Team
11 Alex Peters (GBr) Madison Genesis
12 Sam Bennett (Irl) Team NetApp-Endura
13 Sebastian Lander (Den) BMC Racing Team
14 Rick Zabel (Ger) BMC Racing Team
15 Yanto Barker (GBr) Team Raleigh
67 Jack Wilson (Irl) An Post-Chainreaction
87 Ryan Mullen (Irl) An Post-Chainreaction
104 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Tinkoff-Saxo
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