It wasn’t the day when the race was won, but for many riders, yesterday’s fourth stage of the An Post Rás may well represent the day when their chance was lost.
The first day in the big mountains saw a scattering of riders across the climbs, with large time gaps at the finish drastically narrowing down the list of riders in the hunt for the final yellow jersey. At the start of the stage from Listowel there were eight riders locked on the same overall time, with Marcin Bialoblocki (Britain UK Youth Pro Cycling) wearing yellow by virtue of his better stage placings.
In addition, 47 others were within 46 seconds or less of the jersey, thus presenting multiple threats to the Polish rider.
However, by the time the riders had traversed the eight categorised climbs which were scattered along the 153 kilometres to Glengarriff, the overall classification looked very different indeed.
Rode solidly
Bialoblocki rode solidly over big mountains such as the second category Ladies View and Moll's Gap plus the first category Healy Pass, maintaining his position at the head of the race. However, he now shares the same overall time with just two others, the Irishman Connor McConvey (Azerbaijan Synergy Baku) and the former WorldTour pro Rasmus Guldhammer (Denmark Blue Water).
The list of those within that 46 second window of yellow has also plummeted, with only six others holding that position. Much big racing lies ahead, but many riders have a lot to do to get back into contention.
"Having the yellow jersey this early can mean a lot of pressure so today it was important that I managed to stay up near the front throughout the stage," said Bialoblocki. "I knew I had to work hard today as Richard Handley was only 47 seconds behind me in the GC, so I am very happy to still be in yellow."
Pushed ahead
McConvey, Guldhammer, Handley and others pushed ahead inside the first 20 kilometres of the stage, while Bialoblocki missed the move after he was delayed due to bike problems. He later got across on the Ladies View climb, but missed a move by Handley, Ben Greenwood (Scotland National Team) and Michael Cuming (both Rapha Condor JLT).
These were joined by Remi Pelletier Roy (Canada), Kirill Pozdnyakov (Azerbaijan Synergy Baku) and Christian Varley (Britain Node4 Giordana), and while the latter and Cuming later dropped back, the others hurtled onwards towards the finish.
Pozdnyakov was quickest in the sprint to the line there, beating Pelletier Roy, Greenwood and Handley to the line, while McConvey, Bialoblocki and best Irish county rider Roger Aiken (Louth Prague) came home in the chase group 28 seconds later. “It is a great day for me the team as well, because I won the stage and my team-mate who is good in GC gained some time,” said the Russian Pozdnyakov at the finish, referring to McConvey.
