Liam Holohan triumphs solo into Baltinglass as Rás county rider lead changes hands

Liam Holohan moved clear in the decisive breakaway on stage 7 of the Rás into Baltinglass and then attacked the escape to win solo.

UK rider Liam Holohan has put in a great performance on the penultimate stage of the An Post Rás into Baltinglass, springing from the main breakaway of the day to take victory after spending over three hours out front.

The Madison Genesis rider had plenty of time to spare of Hamish Schreurs of the New Zealand team, who beat Briton Rob Partridge (Madison Genesis) in the sprint for 2nd place after the break disintegrated.

And while a large group containing the yellow jersey closed right down on the back markers from the escape, all of those who had gone on the early move hung in to fill the top seven places on the day, though the top of the general classification remained unchanged.

Of the Irish riders in the race, Damien Shaw of the Cork Aquablue team was very unlucky when he punctured as he got clear in a small chase group that was hunting down the winning breakaway just as it went clear.

While he got a wheel change his chase was over and nobody from the peloton ever saw the breakaway again on the road from Carrick to the finish in Baltinglass.

However, Shaw had the consolation of topping the county rider general classification standings at the end of the stage, taking custody of the blue jersey from team mate Sean Lacey, who enjoyed a 43 second lead on his team mate this morning.

As was the case yesterday, Mark Dowling of the DID Dunboyne team showed he is coming out of this race in very good form when he took the best county rider award on the day.

That breakaway pulled clear with around 20km of racing completed and after some early attacks had gone but failed to get any real gap on a stage that saw the riders take in 147.7km and seven categorised climbs, including two cat 1 ascents.

In the escape were: Robert Partridge (Britain Velosure Giordana), Shane Archbold (Ireland An Post Chain Reaction), Hamish Schreurs (New Zealand National Team), George Tansley (Australia Team Subaru-Albion), Markus Eibegger (Azerbaijan Synergy Baku Cycling), Davide Ballerini (Italy Team Idea 2010 ASD) and eventual winner Liam Holohan (Britain Madison Genesis).

With an hour of racing completed, the race fell into a similar pattern as yesterday, with the breakaway pulling its lead out to a significant 3:55 as the Austria Tirol Cycling team of race leader Clemens Fankhauser led the chase in the bunch.

As the breakaway headed onto the first of the two cat 1 ascents it split, with yesterday’s stage winner Eibegger showing no ill effects of his efforts on the stage to Carrick, attacking the field and moving clear, apparently in an effort to move up the climbers classification in which he started 4th this morning.

He remained clear on the first cat 1 of Corabutt after 78km and also all the way up Mount Leinster which began immediately after Corabutt and is also a cat 1. That was crested at 82km and saw the break split up.

Meanwhile, the race behind was splitting to pieces with a small group of really strong men moving clear in pursuit of the escape.

It featured: Patrick Bevin (New Zealand National Team), Gregor Muhlberger (Austria Tirol Cycling Team), Clemens Fankhauser (Austria Tirol Cycling Team), Riccardo Pichetta (Italy Team Idea 2010 Asd), Mirko Tedeschi (Italy Team Idea 2010 Asd) and Alex Peters (Britain Madison Genesis).

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These were then joined by stage five winner and 2013 race champion Marcin Bialoblocki (Britain Velosure Giordana), Nic Hamilton (Canada National Team) and Jasper Ockeloen (Netherlands Parkhotel Valkenburg). Ian Bibby (Britain Madison Genesis) then also got across, quickly followed by a lead group of around 25 riders, making it approximately 40 chasing those out front.

And as that regrouping was taking place back the road, the same scenario was unfolding up ahead, with all seven riders in the escape coming back together.

With just under 100km completed, the gap between the leaders and the yellow jersey group of those estimated 40 riders was just over two minutes, and it seemed the men out front may not last all the way, especially with plenty of climbing still to come.

But after the final climb of Bunclody with 110km raced and 37km remaining, the gap remained at two minutes.

A little closer to the finish and the gap was down to 1:25 as the leaders pass the 20km remaining sign. Not long after that eventual stage winner Holohan decided he did not fancy his chances staying with the leading seven and he attacked hard.

He quickly pulled out a very good gap and that gradually grew to almost one minute on the men he had attacked. And from the original breakaway Partridge and Schreurs attacked after the leader.

At that point the gap between Holohan out front and the yellow jersey had gone back out again and was around 1:40, with a number of attacks and that growing gap indicating the chase in the yellow jersey group had run out of steam with none of the men up the road any real threat overall.

And that is effectively the way it would stage. Holohan stormed into Baltinglass for the win 46 seconds up on the two chasers, with Schreurs getting the better of Partridge for second place.

Ballerini was just five seconds back in 4th with Archbold a further 33 seconds adrift in 5th and Eibegger and Tansley 6th and 7th on the same time as the Kiwi An Post-Chainreaction rider.

Former yellow jersey and current points competition leader, Bevin of the New Zealand team took the sprint for 8th from stage 5 winner and last year’s overall victor Bialoblocki.

More later.