Daire Feeley wraps up brilliant Rás Tailteann success

Daire Feeley became the first Irishman since 2008 to win the Rás Tailteann while rising star Kevin McCambridge underlined his burgeoning talent by claiming a brilliant solo victory on the final stage of this year's contest.

Feeley capped a memorable week which saw him wrestle control of the race leader's yellow jersey on Friday´s Queen Stage from Newcastle West, Co Limerick to Lisdoonvarna, CoClare. With the help of his Cork All Human/VeloRevolution teammates he managed to hold it for successive stages.

Not since Stephen Gallagher won the then eight-day, UCI-ranked FBD Insurance Rás 14 years ago has a rider from these shores won the event overall, but Feeley ended the drought in some style.

Though the race has gone through a major transition since Gallagher´s win - losing its UCI status, being shortened to five days and attracting a lesser quality field - nobody can dispute the quality of the Roscommon rider's win.

He was brilliant on each of the five days and hardly put a pedal stroke wrong, staying in touch on Wednesday's opener, surging up the standings a day later before Friday's brute show of strength over a savage 172km stage.

The latter showing put him into yellow going into the weekend and after yesterday's penultimate leg ended in a bunch sprint following a scorching 48kph average speed, he was on the cusp of outright victory.

Sunday was all about finishing with those closest to him on the general classification, namely Louis Sutton (Brocar Ale) who started 51 seconds down, Adam Ward (Irish National Team) 15 seconds further back and the latter´s teammate Rory Townsend who was lurking in fourth at 1:29.

Incidentally, each of those three took a stage win this week and were right in the thick of the action again today,