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Downing wins stage 1 as Astana, Saxo split peloton
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Russell Downing (CandiTV) outkicked two Saxo Bank riders out of a small group to win the first stage of the 2009 Tour of Ireland. Astana and Saxo Bank drove the peloton hard up and over the day’s categorized climbs, shattering the field and setting a group of 23 riders free with just under 40km to go.
Alexander Kolobnev and Matti Breschel (both Saxo Bank) finished second and third ahead of Philip Deignan (Cervélo) on the 196km stage from Powerscourt to Waterford.
In the final 7km, the attacks began to fly from the front group, which contained 2008 race winner Marco Pinotti and Craig Lewis (Columbia-HTC); Lance Armstrong, Jani Brajkovic and Haimar Zubeldia (Astana); Stuart O’Grady, Breschel, Kolobnev and Jakob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank) and more than a dozen others.
Zubeldia and Deignan made it into a group of seven that went clear, but that move was caught and the front group split in half. “I think I was a little bit too aggressive coming in towards the finish,” Deignan said. “I left a little my legs out there on the road, and didn’t have anything left for the sprint.”
Crossing Rice Bridge over River Suir with one kilometer to go, Frederik Wilman (Joker-Bianchi) led the front group until Saxo’s Fuglsang took a hard pull, looking to set up a teammate. Downing grabbed his wheel and wound up the big gear on the flat, tailwind finish. He kept the speed on to come around Fuglsang and win by at least a bike length.
“The moment was there that I was really on top of the gear,” Downing said. “I thought it was a little early, but I went with the opportunity and took the gear with me. It was a long sprint, but nice to win it.”
Downing took stage 4 of the Irish tour last year, vaulting the British rider into the yellow jersey. On the race’s final day into Cork, which, like this year, featured three climbs of St. Patrick’s Hill, Downing weathered an onslaught of attacks and ultimately finished second overall to Columbia’s Pinotti.
Columbia’s Mark Cavendish, who won a similar stage that finished in Waterford last year, finished Friday in the main group, 2:12 behind Downing.
Racing the roads
Besides Cat. 1, 2 and 3 climbs, stage 1 featured a number of tight, wind-exposed roads, some only wide enough for a single car to squeeze through. Combined with a strong wind that was in the riders face most of the day, conditions were ripe for a breakaway. Astana and Saxo Bank took advantage.
“Astana and Saxo Bank really picked up the tempo on the climb,” said BMC’s Mathias Frank, who finished 12th. “But then the roads on the descent were really narrow, it was windy, and they were going really hard.”
Astana team boss Johan Bruynel said he was content with how the race played out.
“We were pulling at the front on the (Cat. 2 Inistioge) climb and then we just kept going over the top,” Bruyneel said. “It was very narrow. We decided that it was good to start riding and avoid any problems. Once a team starts to pull and you’re caught in the second part of the peloton, it’s very difficult to move up on this kind of roads. At the end of the climb we accelerated. We saw a good split so we kept going.”
Bruyneel said Brajkovic could be Astana’s guy for the general classification.
“We don’t have any sprinters here, so today was a good opportunity to avoid a bunch sprint,” he said. “Once you have a group of 20 riders, you never know what will happen. We had Zubeldia in a little group, so it was good.”
Zubeldia finished fifth. Armstrong finished 23rd, the last rider across in the second group that came in 16 seconds behind Downing.
“It takes it out of you,” Armstrong said of the stage. “The combination of the up-and-down terrain, the rough surface, the twisty, turny roads, the wind and a lot of accelerations. You know you’ve raced at the end of it.”
Another man who knew he had raced was Rwandan Adrien Niyonshuti . The MTN-Energade rider finished 82 of 108 riders, 11 seconds adrift of the peloton.
“It was tough today,” Niyonshuti said. “This was the first time I have done a 200km stage. It was very hard for me. I was happy just to finish.”
Team Type 1 rider Matt Wilson took the KOM jersey. Points for the climber’s jersey were up for grabs right off the bat, with a Cat. 3 climb topping out just 7.3km into the stage. Wilson, who won the KOM jersey at the race last year, said his effort today wasn’t planned.
“I was there at the front of the first climb, and I just jumped and went for it,” White said. He then took second over the following Cat. 1 Mount Leinster (MTN-Energade’s Jay Thomson was solo off the front at the time) and then second again over the Cat. 3 Coppanagh climb.
The Tour of Ireland continues Saturday with a 196km stage from Clonmel to Killarney. The day features two Cat. 2 climbs and one Cat. 1 effort. Most riders expect the race to come down to the circuits in Cork on Sunday.
