CYCLING:  Spaniard Oscar Pereiro won the sixth stage of the Tour of Switzerland yesterday following a decisive breakaway.

Phonak rider Pereiro came home one minute and 14 seconds clear of German Jan Ullrich of the Bianchi team after the chasing pack failed to catch him on the 134.7-km stage, which started and finished in Silvaplana.

Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen (Fassa Bortolo) was third on the gruelling stage, which included two grade one climbs.

Italian Francesco Casagrande (Lampre) retained his 37-second lead over Telekom's Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakhstan after they both finished in the top 10.

Swiss rider Alexander Moos (Phonak) remains third overall.

In Ireland TotalCycling.com/Lindsay Ford rider Tommy Evans won the Tour of the Sperrins in Cookstown.

Coming a day after his win in the Ulster road race championships, the northern rider has highlighted his good form for next week's national road race championships and will be motivated to improve on his bronze medal of last year.

Yesterday's race was marked by an early breakaway by St Tiernan's rider Brian Lennon, who went clear in the opening stages with his team-mate, Dylan Rafter, and netted enough prime points to take the king of the mountains.

Evans profited from some hard driving by his TotalCycling team-mates to reel the duo back in, and in the closing kilometres forged ahead with Lennon and won their two-up sprint finish.

Elsewhere, Orwell Wheeler's Scott McDonald was similarly victorious in a two-man gallop, getting the better of Paídi O'Brien (VC La Pomme) at the end of the Paddy Flanagan criterium in Kildare.

Third place went to Cycleways Lee Strand rider Aidan Crowley, who beat three other breakaway companions to the line 20 seconds later.