Bagdonas gives An Post Seán Kelly team the win

CYCLING:THE AN Post Grant Thornton M Donnelly Seán Kelly team pulled off what was arguably their best showing to date when they triumphed in the An Post Rás in Skerries yesterday.

Lithuanian rider Gedimias Bagdonas finished safely in the main bunch in the north Dublin seaside town and alongside all of his main rivals, ending the eight-day international event 32 seconds clear of Anatoliy Pakhtusov (Ukraine ISD-Lampre Continental).

The significance of the result was twofold. Firstly, the squad went into the race aware their team was backed by the same sponsor as the race itself, and while An Post didn’t demand a victory, general manger Kurt Bogaerts was clear he saw it as the team’s biggest goal of the season.

The second was the fact Bagdonas took the race lead last Tuesday, hitting the front early in a race that is notoriously difficult to control. Since then the squad had doggedly defended the yellow jersey.

The task has broken many a team before, but Bagdonas, British rider Mark McNally, plus Irish trio Sam Bennett, Ronan McLaughlin and Mark Cassidy, succeeded in controlling things, earning a superb win.

“It is the biggest result of my career,” Bagdonas said, referring to the overall success as well as the two stage victories he scored.

“But it’s not only my victory . . . it belongs to the team also, they did incredible work for me.”

With Bennett, McLaughlin and Cassidy putting aside their personal goals to defend the jersey, Ireland Team Skoda’s Seán Downey was best of the home riders in 11th place. He is making continuous progress and team manager Neil Martin is convinced a big pro career lies ahead for the 20-year-old.

More visible to the stage-end crowds were the superb stage wins over the weekend by Giant Kenda team-mates Martyn Irvine and David McCann. Irvine was clear in a group for much of Saturday’s stage to Kildare, then clipped away alone with seven kilometres remaining and won by six seconds.

Multiple Irish champion McCann broke clear 40 kilometres after yesterday’s start, joining up with Tobyn Horton (Team Motorpoint) in ekeing out a three and a half minute lead over the peloton. He dropped the Briton on the penultimate ascent of the Black Hills climb and used his known time trial ability over the remaining 23 kilometres to hit the line 14 seconds ahead of the main bunch.

The 2004 Rás victor said afterwards that taking a stage became the main goal for him halfway through the event.

“Myself and Martin were both on a mission after we fell out of general classification contention,” he said, referring to the crash on last Wednesday’s stage to Castletownbere which cost him important time. “I knew I had the legs, but I am always heavily marked. I always have to do it the hard way, and it was the same today.”

Stage runner-up Shane Archbold took the green jersey for most consistent rider, while his New Zealand team-mate Aaron Gate was best under 23.

Oleksandr Sheydyk (Ukraine ISD-Lampre) was best climber. Christopher Coyle (Mayo Western Edge) and Adam Armstrong (Dublin Eurocycles) were winners in the Cycling Ireland Category Two and Fitz Cycles County Rider awards respectively. Motorpoint and Carlow rider Dan Morrissey dominated the foreign and Irish county team prizes. But it was the An Post Seán Kelly team which were the biggest winners.