Stage 7 - May 28: Rathdrum - Wicklow Town, 138 km     <Main Page >     <Previous Stage>     <Next Stage>

Newton poised for Ras victory
By Shane Stokes in Wicklow Town

FBD Insurance Rás leader Chris Newton looks set to become the first overseas rider to win two editions of the race, with just a one hour criterium stage tomorrow separating him from the final yellow jersey.

Newton, who has won Olympic medals and world titles on the track, showed his all round versatility today when he matched his main rivals pedal-stroke for pedal-stroke on the mountains of county Wicklow. In all, the riders faced seven categorised climbs on the 138 kilometre stage from Rathdrum to Wicklow Town, including the first cat ascents of Slieveman, Sally Gap and Lugalla.

The day was marked by a nine man breakaway group containing four Irish riders - Denis Lynch (Cork - Kanturk), Philip Finegan (Dublin - Usher Insulations), Sean Lacey and Bill Moore (both Meath - M. Donnelly). Also present was stage 5 winner Morten Christiansen (Norway - Sparebanken Vest), Duncan Urquhart (Scotland), Steve Kenny (NE England), Andrew Roche (Tipperary - Worldwide Cycles) and Yorkshire - Trinity Capital rider Mark Lovatt, who scored heavily on the day's climbs to win the King of the Mountains competition. Kerryman Eugene Moriarty had started the day second overall in that classification but slipped out of the top three.

Lynch, Lovatt and Duncan Urquhart (Scotland) pressed on near the end as a chase group containing Newton and the other overall contenders started to close. The three leaders were caught with just three kilometres remaining, paving the way for a sprint finish and Hegreberg's win. Former top professional sprinter Malcolm Elliott (Yorkshire - Trinity Capital) was second while Yanto Barker (Wales - Stena Line) was third. Moriarty was best Irish rider in fifth.

How it unfolded
The penultimate stage of the FBD Insurance Rás was seen as the big showdown, with just a one hour criterium to follow on Sunday. Former Tour of Spain points winner Malcolm Elliott started the day eight seconds behind Newton overall, and knew that if he was to stand a chance of winning the race, he had to make his move today. So too Morten Hegreberg, who was over two minutes back but who, with the backing of his strong Norway - Sparebanken Vest team, had arguably a better chance of staging a big upset.

However, much would depend on their tactics: the Norwegians had ridden for long stretches of time on the front during stage 6, opting for a possible stage win rather than leaving it all up to Newton's GB - Recycling.co.uk team. This played perfectly into the race leader's hands. Vastly different tactics would be needed today if they were to aim for yellow.

The seventh stage was seen as the hardest of the race, with seven categorised climbs crammed into the 138 kilometres between Rathdrum and Wicklow Town. The first of these came immediately after the start, making a decent warm-up imperative for the 158 riders who were left in the Rás.

Here, mountains leader Julian Winn (Wales - Stena Line) got his defence off to a good start when he won the first prime on Ballygannon Hill ahead of closest challenger Eugene Moriarty, Paul Healion (Dublin - Usher Insulations) and Stephen Gallagher (Ireland - Grant Thornton). Sensing that he may have trouble getting the better of Winn each time, Moriarty opted to go for broke and attacked before the day's second climb, the cat 1 ascent of Slieveman (14.8 km).

The Listowel rider was joined soon afterwards by Duncan Urquhart (Scotland) but despite his help in opening up a seven second lead, the duo were hauled back after a couple of kilometres of freedom. Urquhart duly went again, taking Tino Haakman (Netherlands - Kennemerland) and Moriarty's Meath - Cycleways.com team-mate Philip Cassidy for company. The trio opened up a 20 second lead over lone chaser Max Spirin (US - McGuire Cycles), with the bunch a further eight seconds back. However, a strong headwind on the climb made things difficult for the leaders, with Spirin being caught very quickly and Haakman - who had unshipped his chain - plus Cassidy suffering a similar fate.

Winn decided that aggression was the best form of defence and leaped out of the bunch to Urquhart. They were caught halfway up the climb, but he still had enough left in the tank to take the prime ahead of Hegreberg and Morten Christiansen (Norway - Sparebanken Vest). Further back, the bunch was splitting into many fragmented groups, with a lead group of approximately 35 riders going clear over the top of the mountain. This first group contained most of the strong riders, with the exception of Tommy Evans (Yorkshire Trinity Capital), who had punctured halfway up.

Shortly afterwards, Winn led Hegreberg and Rob Sharman (GB - Recycling.co.uk) over the summit of the category 3 Barnameelia climb. A regrouping then took place at the head of the race, with a peloton of approximately 80 riders forming. Shortly afterwards Morten Christiansen (Norway - Sparebanken Vest) and Sean Lacey (Meath - M. Donnelly) jumped away, and were then joined by Duncan Urquhart (Scotland), Mark Lovatt (Yorkshire - Trinity Capital), Steve Kenny (NE England), Denis Lynch (Cork - Kanturk), Philip Finegan (Dublin - Usher Insulations), Bill Moore (both Meath - M. Donnelly) and Andrew Roche (Tipperary - Worldwide Cycles).

Encouraged by the fact that the best placed rider overall, Lacey, was 6 minutes and 37 seconds back in twelfth place and Newton's team would be unlikely to chase, the nine riders sped onwards and built a lead of two and a half minutes shortly after the 50 kilometre point. From this point on the lead began to fall, the gap dropping to 1 minute and 11 seconds just before the top of the category three climb of Lackan (85.1 kilometres). Lacey was in trouble here, slipping back temporarily, while Philip Finegan (Dublin - Usher Insulations) got top points ahead of Lovatt, Urquhart and Roche.

Lovatt and Finegan pulled clear on the next climb, Ballyward, and were fifty metres ahead starting the descent down to Ballysmutton Bridge. However, Finegan got it wrong around a tight left hand bend, overshooting it and nearly going down. He stayed upright but appeared to lose some of his momentum, riding less strongly on the long, exposed run up to Sally Gap.

Newton's chase group had closed to 40 seconds approximately one third of the way up the climb, but when the race leader punctured the break was able to pull out a little more time. Newton quickly got a wheel from a team-mate and raced back on, while ahead Lacey, Moore, Kenny and then Finegan started to lose contact with the others in the front group.

First over the top of the barren, wind-blasted climb was Lynch, Lovatt netting more mountain points in second place, and after the summit the two of these pressed on ahead with Urquhart. Things were starting to heat up behind, with eleven riders setting off in pursuit. The chasers were Hegreberg, Newton, Elliott, Christiansen, Gabriel Rasch (Norway - Sparebanken Vest), Yanto Barker (Wales - Stena Line), Stuart Gillespie (US - TIAA CREF), Robin Sharman (GB - Recycling.co.uk), John Tanner (Yorkshire - Trinity Capital), Roger Aiken (Louth - Safe Cycling), Tim Barry (Tipperary - Dan Morrissey) and Roche, who had been picked up by the chase.

Lovatt sealed his win in the King of the Hills competition when he took first on Lugalla, ahead of Urquhart and Lynch. The three continued to ride flat out, holding eighteen seconds of a lead for quite some time. The trio sped through Roundwood and then down the so-called Easy Devils Glen, where they actually increased their lead, bringing it back up to 30 seconds as they ripped through Ashford. Just seven kilometres remained at that point.

However, under the impetus of teams such as Norway - Sparebanken Vest the gap tumbled. The trio were caught with two kilometres to go, and when a counter-attack by leading under 23 rider Stuart Gillespie (US - TIAA CREF) was covered, the scene was set for a big group sprint. Elliott was aiming to take his second stage win of the race but in the end it was Hegreberg who had the jump today, crossing the line just ahead of his English rival and improving on his second place of 24 hours earlier. Wales - Stena Line rider Wales rider Yanto Barker was next in, sprinting home ahead of Tanner and Moriarty.

Newton was back in tenth, but happy. Barring a crash or mechanical problem, he should win the 2005 FBD Insurance Rás. 'It is looking good for the overall,' he said. 'I hope it all works out okay tomorrow. This is a great race and it would be fantastic to win it again.'

'The wind was a big factor today. There was a block headwind on the early climbs, so that made things very hard for guys to get away. My team was strong and rode well. There are a couple of young riders in there and while they were a bit inexperienced at the start of the race, they learned real quick as the week went on. Paul Manning helped a lot with that, and was going very well himself.'

'My biggest fear today was a puncture or a crash. I had a flat on Sally Gap but my team-mate gave me his wheel and things worked out fine. When the break went there were a whole load of sub-plots going on; some riders further down in the overall were risking losing their place, so their teams had to ride. So too the Wales team, as they were trying to set up Julian Winn for the climbs. We had to calculate all that, to work out who would ride and play off that. It was pretty tactical, like chess on wheels.'

Frank Campbell, manager of the Yorkshire - Trinity Capital team, was happy with Lovatt's performance. 'It is a great day for us,' he said. 'It wasn't a plan for Mark to go too early, the idea was that he would wait until the flatter roads in the middle of the stage and then see how things were. Normally Tommy (Evans) would have gone too but he punctured early on and lost out on his chance. But Mark had a great day in the mountains and took the climber's jersey.'

1 Morten Hegreberg (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 3.29.36
2 Malcolm Elliott (GBr) Trinity Capital
3 Yanto Barker (GBr) Stena
4 John Tanner (GBr) Trinity Capital
5 Eugene Moriarty (Irl) cycleways.com
6 Simon Kelly (Irl) Nucleus
7 Sigvard Kukk (Est) Kalev Chocolate
8 Stephen Gallagher (Irl) Grant Thornton
9 Robin Sharman (GBr) Recycling.co.uk
10 Chris Newton (GBr) Recycling.co.uk

General classification after stage 7

1 Chris Newton (GBr) Recycling.co.uk 25.31.25
2 Malcolm Elliott (GBr) Trinity Capital 0.14
3 Morten Hegreberg (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 2.21
4 Yanto Barker (GBr) Stena 2.42
5 Robin Sharman (GBr) Recycling.co.uk 2.43
6 Tim Barry (Irl) Dan Morrissey
7 Gabriel Rasch (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 2.59
8 John Tanner (GBr) Trinity Capital 5.40
9 Stuart Gillespie (USA) TIAA-CREF
10 Kevin Dawson (GBr) Trinity Capital 6.19

Points classification

1 Chris Newton (GBr) Recycling.co.uk 83 pts
2 Malcolm Elliott (GBr) Trinity Capital 81
3 Morten Hegreberg (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 71
4 Yanto Barker (GBr) Stena 58
5 John Tanner (GBr) Trinity Capital 46
6 Eugene Moriarty (Irl) cycleways.com 43
7 Robin Sharman (GBr) Recycling.co.uk 35
8 Tim Barry (Irl) Dan Morrissey 33
9 Roger Aiken (Irl) Safe Cycling 32
10 Sigvard Kukk (Est) Kalev Chocolate 32