Darragh O'Mahony was in absolutely blistering form this afternoon, making all the key selections before biding his time and making his race-winning move late in the stage. The O'Leary's Stone Kanturk man is riding for the national team this week and is in with a real shout now of taking the yellow jersey (Photo: Tommy Heaney)
By Brian Canty
Darragh O’Mahony has taken the biggest win of his career today on a crazy day at the Scott Bicycles Junior Tour of Ireland.
The young Kanturk man, riding for the national team this week, beat Joublot Marin Ferre (AC Bisontine) to the line with Sandor Delgado Jnr (North California Cycling Foundation) and Nicholas Castellano (Team Specialized) coming third and fourth, respectively.
That quartet came to the line around two minutes ahead of what was left of a severely depleted bunch - though a few riders clipped off the front late on and picked up valuable seconds.
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The near gale-force winds that Met Eireann predicted lashed the riders for much of the stage today.
But O’Mahony and his team, managed by former professional and top Irish international rider David McCann, made a plan and executed it to perfection.
That involved trying to isolate the yellow jersey of Gage Hecht (Hot Tubes) as early as possible and things looked to be going swimmingly for the men in green when O’Mahony and Marc Heaney got away early.
A smattering of riders joined them, including Hecht and one other from his Hot Tubes team.
However, sensing that wasn’t enough, they drilled a furious pace to get the break back, clearly concerned they needed more up front.
That chase from behind effectively blew the race to bits as the field turned right up along the west coast where the strong winds savaged the peloton and only the strongest managed to stay in the front group.
The attacking rarely ceased, with the Irish team particularly aggressive, as were the NRPT-Magnet.ie and the Hot Tubes squads.
O’Mahony was to the fore all day, going for as many climbers' points as possible and he took the maximum going up the category one climbs of Carron and Corkscrew Hill.
And going over the category two Cliffs of Moher he managed to escape in what turned out to be the decisive break.
With him went the aforementioned Ferre and Delgado. And though their initial gap was only 20 seconds, which they held for 15 kilometres, the elastic eventually snapped.
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The margin then ballooned to 1:30, with Marin Ferre (AC Bisontine) the new leader on the road.
O’Mahony knew he needed 14 seconds on him to take yellow and McCann instructed him to make his move late on when Ferre began to tire.
But Ferre knew he was riding into the race if the group stayed away so he stayed honest, while Delgado and Castellano, who joined later, also had it all to gain and so they rode hard too.
That played perfectly into O’Mahony’s hands and inside the final kilometres he went for broke, jumping clear and taking the stage as well as four seconds on new race leader Ferre.
O'Mahony was a little disappointed he didn’t have the yellow jersey himself but with two stages to go, and another big day tomorrow, he and the Irish team are perfectly poised.
Furthermore, Simon Tuomey jumped away from the reduced peloton late on and bagged himself a couple of precious seconds on his rivals to also stay in contention while Jake Gray did likewise.
They're now fourth and eighth, respectively.
Tomorrow's stage takes the riders just over 100 kilometres from Ennis to the cat one summit finish atop Gallows Hill.
This is another cracking stage and should leave no one in any doubt about who the strongest men in the race are.
Prior to the final showdown on Gallows Hill, which saw Michael O’Loughlin win last year from his Irish teammate Eddie Dunbar, there’s a couple of tricky cat 2 climbs at Maghera and Sallybank before the riders tackle the cat 1 Windy Gap after 85 kilometres.
The Windy Gap was only deemed a cat 2 last year but it’s since been ‘promoted’ to cat 1 status.
The final ramp up to Gallows Hill is less than two kilometres but it’s sure to shape the general classification.
For stage 4 and classification results, click here.
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