Terminator: Damien Shaw has carved a name out for himself as a menacing power house since coming late to cycling. Always fancied to do a ride in the Rás, he's loitering with intent and was a whisker from a rare podium finish for a county man on today's stage 3 in Charleville (Photo: Stephen McMahon)
By Gerard Cromwell
One of the strongest riders on the domestic scene this year, Damien Shaw proved today he can handle himself against some of the best competition in Europe.
Riding for the Cork City Aquablue team, the Mullingar fire fighter was one of only two Irish riders in the leading move of nine today. And having tried to solo to the line in the last kilometres, he took his highest ever Rás stage placing of fourth into Charleville.
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Unhappy with the lack of cooperation up front however, his first attack came 20km out.
“With 20km to go I tried to shake it up a little bit,” he says.
“There were a few boys sitting on at that stage so the idea was to try and put them out the back. It was a joke really.
"Some of them are riding at a much higher level all of the time and they’re pulling faces and all kinds of stuff. If the Italian fellah drank every time he put his hand up he’d have had a fierce amount of fluid in him by the end of the stage.”
Despite his strong performance today, Shaw admits that he caught a lucky break when trying to get across to the seven man lead group earlier this morning.
“Sometimes it’s strength that gets you across and sometimes it’s luck,” he noted.
“I probably had a bit of luck today because I was in between the break and the bunch when the An Post rider (stage 1 winner Robert-Jon McCarthy) came across.
"I wouldn’t have got across on my own. No matter how strong you are you need the right things to fall into place on this race and if he hadn’t come across I wouldn’t have got across either.”
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Taking second on the Tour of Ulster final stage two weeks ago to team mate Bryan McCrystal, a ride that brought him the final yellow jersey and underlined his form coming into this Rás (Photo: Marian Lamb - Cycling Ulster)
Having built up a lead of four minutes at one point, things began to fall apart for the nine leaders in the last 20km. The gap diminished rapidly until there was only 16 seconds between bunch and break on the line.
“It was probably a result of us not riding cohesively,” said Shaw of the break's advantage melting away, though a chase led by, but not restricted to, the New Zealand national team of yellow jersey Patrick Bevin played no small part in closing things down.
“It was very cat and mouse from about 15km to go. I could see the Baku guy that won... he’s a big lad and can obviously sprint so I didn’t really want it to come down to a sprint.
"I needed to get away and was hoping two or three of us could ride together. I think Roger (Aiken) is fairly similar to me and needed a gap too so we both had a few goes in the end.”
Although his goal on this Rás was to make the podium at least one day, the Mullingar man had mixed feelings about his fourth place on the stage.
“I said at the start of the week that I wanted to get on the podium in some shape or form. I was up there today as best county rider but it would have nice to have been third. But I’ve never been in the top 10 before so I’d have to be happy enough.
"I learned a good bit last year. I learned that I’ve nothing to be afraid of. A lot of it is positioning and knowing the wheels to follow.
"I’m going fairly well but the Rás is a good step up from the stage races we normally do. So it’s kind of reassuring to know you can perform well on the bigger international stuff.”
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