CYCLING: The Irish squad seemed in unstoppable form earlier this week, snapping up two stage wins, the yellow jersey and the lead in the team's classification, but yesterday things went horribly wrong.

Before the start in Letterkenny they had three contenders for overall victory. Ninety-seven miles and five categorised climbs later, deposed leader Tommy Evans was five minutes down on stage winner and new yellow jersey Chris Newton. Ciarán Power and David O'Loughlin were 17 minutes in arrears.

It was a grim day for the Irish quintet. Wednesday's stage had brought punctures, crashes and hard chasing. Yesterday was akin to déjà vu, only worse. This time there was to be no happy ending and ultimately, no hope of a repeat home win in the race.

Before the start the team seemed distant and tense; in the first hour the pressure on them increased when O'Loughlin, Power and Andrew Donnellan each suffered punctures and lost vital energy in chasing back.

Covering a number of breakaway attempts further sapped their strength, and when South African pro Daniel Spence and Irish county riders Eugene Moriary and Ray Clarke sparked off a major move after 18 miles, things really started to unravel.

Coming out of Muff 19 riders were clear, of which nine were within 30 seconds of Evans's overall lead. Second-placed Ari Hojgaard was the most dangerous, being just four seconds behind, but so too John Tanner, Hamish Hayes, Tobias Lergard, Mark Lovatt and the Britain trio of Chris Newton, Kieran Page and 2001 winner Paul Manning.

For the second day running the Irish team had only O'Loughlin in the move; he was considered a real contender, but it emerged after the stage the Mayo rider had been ill during the night.

Power and Evans were unable to bridge the gap, and with the strongmen up front pulling together their lead grew. Twenty-four hours previously the green jerseys had been able to pull back a similar move. This time, no joy. Legs were tired from Wednesday's efforts and so team manager Frankie Campbell decided to play the O'Loughlin card.

"David felt very cold at the end of yesterday's stage and then had a fever during the night," he said afterwards. "But when he got into the break he said he felt okay."

Fifty-four miles into the stage, the first category slopes of Ballagh Hill saw the Kazakh duo Maxim Iglinskiv and Andrey Medyannikov leap clear. Working well together, they opened a lead of one minute and 20 seconds before the start of the day's feared climb, the one-in-four leg-breaker of Mamore Gap. Hopes were O'Loughlin could go clear of the other contenders here, and take yellow. Instead, he slipped back dramatically.

Heading up the savage climb, Newton made the crucial move, dropped all the others and closed up to the Kazakh pair. The junction was finally made on the following climb of Pinch Hill, and with Swede Tobias Lergard also getting across, the four plunged down to the finish in Buncrana.

Newton burst clear in the final 300 metres and seized both stage and jersey, with Iglinskiv, Medyannikov and Lergard over a second slower. Eugene Moriarty was best of the Irish for the second day running, finishing a fine seventh, while Evans (six minutes down) and Power and O'Loughlin (both 17 minutes) were both much further behind. And so their Rás dream is over.

Last year Newton led, but lost yellow before the end. This time around, he has turned the tables and holds the lead going into today's mountainous stage to Donegal.