Visitors take Gorey stage, yellow but Devins & Zaidan still close

James Becker from France takes Gorey Three Day stage 3 from Matthew Devins. The man in the distance in 3rd place, Oscar Onley, took the yellow jersey. But Devins and deposed race leader Darragh Zaidan are still well in the mix for outright victory (Photo: Sean Rowe)

Darragh Zaidan (Arcane) may have taken the yellow jersey in the Sunday morning TT at the Gorey Three Day and lost it in the afternoon, but he and Matthew Devins still spearhead the Irish challenge for overall victory.

Today in the afternoon stage 3 in Gorey, James Becker (Velo Club Eckwersheim) won from a breakaway.

He got the better of Irish junior international Devins (Yeats Country) in the final push to the line, relegating the Irish teenager to 2nd on the day.

That duo pressed clear of their breakaway companion, Oscar Onley (Spokes Racing Team), in the final sprint.

However, though Onley lost two seconds to the winner and runner-up on the stage, he took the yellow jersey from Zaidan.

For full TT stage 2 results from Gorey Three Day follow this link

The race leader had done very well to defend his lead early on the stage, but when the winning breakaway slipped up the road he had used most of his bullets.

And so those ahead worked together to pull out a significant lead and re-order the general classification.

Darragh Zaidan in the yellow jersey. He lost it to Onley but there remains one stage to come (Photo: Sean Rowe)

Onley now leads by 14 seconds overall from Becker; but the new race leader has a strong team, that also won the opening stage.

Devins is next in the standings at 18 seconds; a not insurmountable gap to make up on the final stage if he got a chance.

The gaps are bigger after that top three from todays third stage; Zaidan next, in 4th place and some 48 seconds down on the race leader.

Then comes Neal Hudson of Orwell Wheelers; in 5th place overall some 50 seconds off the race lead.

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After that, in 6th place overall, some TT winner Jay Earls. The South East Road club man is 53 seconds down on Onley in yellow.

The 96.4km stage today consisted of four laps of the Craanford circuit, with Zaidan putting in a big effort on the second lap to close down a large group that went clear.

A lot of groups went clear but it was on the third of four laps that the elastic snapped and those who would fill the podium got clear.

However, when a group of about 10 riders went up the road on the third lap, the gap to them was not going to be closed as easily.

A sign that there was firepower in the group was the gap they pulled out; shooting up to over a minute very quickly.

That group split up under the pressure applied from the stronger riders until just Becker, Onley and Devins remained.

Behind those three, seven riders finished between the bunch and the three escapees; some of them the remnants of the 10-rider escape.

Craig Sweetman (Stamullen RC) was among them and he placed 4th on the stage at 49 seconds. Finishing on the same time was him was Brian McArdle (Scott Orwell) in 5th and Paul Woods (Carlow Road Club) in 6th.

Another one second back was Darren Davitt (Slipstream CC), Klus Aureliusz (Stamullen RC) and Jurgen Simpson (Limerick CC).

A further two seconds was Adrian McGregor of Dunloy CC; rounding out the top 10 on the stage some 52 seconds off the winner.

Zaidan then got the sprint from the bunch for 11th place, though the 54 seconds between him and the winner cost him the race lead.