Tough day for Irish as massive splits appear in near five-hour Tour of Azerbaijan epic

Calm Before the Storm: The racing was fast and furious on today's stage 2 at the Tour of Azerbaijan

By Brian Canty

Today's second stage of the Tour of Azerbaijan has wreaked havoc with the peloton with the Irish contingent suffering significant time losses on the 183 kilometre trek from Baku to Ismayilli.

The man who animated yesterday's opening stage, Connor McConvey, was once again best of the Irish in 36th place, but his time loss of almost 10 minutes sees him slip back to 36th on GC.

The Belfast man does however have a teammate in second overall; Oleksandr Urutkovych a mere 51 seconds down on new race leader Serhiy Grechyn of the Konya Torku Seker Sport team.

"It was a very hard stage today," said McConvey.

"There was a group up the road and we rode very hard for about 80k to try and bring it back. Over the climbs it was especially difficult as there were some strong crosswinds so that was why there was so many splits. The last 50k then was just flat out and on a very steep climb, which made it even more difficult. The GC is over for me but we have Oleksandr in second so we'll see how the next few days pan out."

Mark Dowling was the next Irishman over the line in 73rd, some 12 minutes back while his Polygon Sweet Nice teammate came in just over two minutes further back. Stephen Halpin, unfortunately, missed the time limit.

"It was a long day out there," said Dowling.

"My legs are feeling better but I rode terribly on the descent to the bottom of the category one climb. Hopefully I can have an easier day tomorrow and that the form will be good for stage four because I think that might suit me."

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