MANNING BACK IN YELLOW AS JERSEY CHANGES HANDS AGAIN.

BY Gerard Cromwell

Today's penultimate stage of the FBD MILK RAS was the last real chance for anyone to stake a claim for overall glory, with just a city centre criteium in O'Connell St. Dublin ahead of the field tomorrow. Today's proceedings were given a boost by the presence of Irish cycling legend, Sean Kelly at the start, who waved the riders off from Dungarvan.

" I've been keeping up to date with the Ras most of the week" said Kelly. "At the moment , I'm back home after doing the classics for Eurosport, and I'll be back in France for the Tour. I'm doing a bit of construction at home and I'm keeping myself busy. Let's say I don't have a problem with getting spare time.", he laughed. Kelly still manages to get out on his bike regularly. "I still do a spin at the weekends. Some Saturday's, every Sunday, it's just about keeping in touch." Kelly who never rode the Ras in his amateur days in Ireland, admitted he would have liked to be riding the race. "Yeah I would have liked to ride the Ras. There was moments, after my professional career where I considered riding it, but I never got myself around to it. I'd say it's going to be very difficult now (to ride it). I'd have to train to that standard, especially this year, the way the race is going, its very ,very hard, very fast, you know, it's getting more like a professional race. The way the race is controlled, the way teams are controlling the race, we've seen that all week. That hasn't really happened in previous years, I think once you have a UCI points situation, that's the standard of racing you get."

Today's stage was mainly controlled by the Telekom team for the first half of the race. Mark Lovatt of Southend and Roger Morgan of Surrey were the only two escapees at New Ross and the Germans just hung them out to dry, allowing them a gap hovering around 30" until the entrance to Bunclody the first time around. With the climbs of The Heights, Corrabutt Gap and Mount Leinster ahead of them, the contenders were intent on staying in contention at the start of the climbs. At the bottom of the Heights, Nick White of South Africa was race leader on the road as he was part of a 3 man group with 51" advantage on the peleton. As the field fragmented on the climb, Paul Manning of Great Britain was making his way across to White , who had gone on from the breakaway group.

These two led over the next two climbs with the South Africa HSBC rider taking the King of the Mountains title in the process. With the gap at one minute to a chasing duo of David McCann (Ireland Shannon Oaks) and Jaroslaw Welniak of Poland Legia at the 25kms board and the yellow jersey stuck in a chase group which also contained Irish riders Paddy Moriarty, Dave O'Loughlin, Keith Gallagher and Paul Griffin as well as most of the top ten on GC, Manning was race leader on the road. The Olympic pursuit medallist put his speed and stamina to good use as he shared the workload with White on the run-in. On the line, White took South Africa HSBC's second stage win in as many days, with Manning moving into yellow, by virtue of his second place on the stage. David McCann took third on the stage, 1'09" down, with the yellow jersey of Christian Knees finishing over 1'20" down.

Manning now looks set to become the first ever English winner of the FBD MILK Ras as the field has just a city centre criterium in Dublin ahead of them tomorrow. "Unbelievable" was White's verdict on his stage win, and indeed overall win in the King of the Mountains competition. "We didn't know what to expect of ourselves (HSBC). It was very hard today. I was up there early and Paul Manning came up to me and he was very strong. It took us a few days to find our legs. We're not really used to the size of the bunch here. I'm very happy that I achieved what I did today."

Paul Manning was equally happy. "I hope that there's no incidents tomorrow, and that I haven't done anything wrong today." he smiled. "I'll cross the finish line tomorrow before I congratulate myself. The climbs were pretty nasty today. It was good because there was a little break up the road today and when I got across there was still one guy who was pretty strong and we worked fifty-fifty to the finish really. It's been a really good race. It's relentless, I'll say that, they don't give up. It's been enjoyable. It still is!"

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