By Gerard Cromwell

Clear skies greeted the 159 riders of the FBD MILK RAS for the first time this week as they left Killorglin for the 107 mile 4th stage to Castletownbeare.

Te field was without Mayo Connaught Gold rider David O'Loughlin who was forced to abandon after spending a restless night with food poisoning. O'Loughlin was lying in second overall and was a big loss to Irish hopes for glory. "I was up all night." He said at the start, "Three of us in the team (James Hodnett and an official) had it and we put it down to some egg sandwiches we ate in the B&B yesterday. I tried to eat some breakfast this morning but I couldn't even keep that down, so there was no point in continuing."

As usual the action started very early and at the first KOM at Seefin, after 7.5 miles, Julian Winn (Wales) took the sprint from Daniel Spence (HSBC South Africa) and local hero Eugene Moriarty of Meath Lee Strand Cycleways.

Four miles later, Winn lived up to his name again as he took the climb at Drum West with Spence in second place and Ireland's Paul Griffin (Stena Line) taking third.

The Welshman made it three in a row at Mount Foley with Spence in third place this time.

By Cahirciveen (31 miles) French duo Stefan Mifsud and Frederic Persoli of VC La Pomme had latched onto the back of a six man group containing Tim Buckle of Great Britain, Richie Cahill (Cork), Huw Pritchard (Wales), Spence (South Africa HSBC), recent Tour of the North winner Duncun Urquehart (Visit Scotland) and Paul Griffin (Ireland Stena Line) to make eight at the front, with a 1'00" lead over the chasers. Dublin Skip's Paddy Moriarty (Dublin Skip) was unlucky not to join the break as he punctured when within touching distance of bridging the gap with the Frenchmen.

Four miles later number one-ranked Danish amateur Ari Hojgaard (Denmark) and Steve Cummings of Great Britain stormed across the gap to make ten at the front.

Paul Griffin took the next KOM from Spence again and at the bottom of the descent the leaders had 2'00" on the rest of the field at the 50 miles mark.

At 66 miles, the French duo still had not contributed to the breakaway since joining and Griffin was still protecting the interests of race leader and Stena Line Ireland team mate Power. Huw Pritchard (Wales) attacked the group and he was countered by Mifsud and Hojgaard in Kenmare. This resulted in Cahill and Spence getting dropped.

Griffin took the next KOM before being dropped on the climb of Knockanouganish, with the two GB riders, Buckle and Cummings still driving hard at the front of the break with Hojgaard and Prichard.

These four were joined at the bottom of the Healy Pass by a group containing three Polish Legia riders; Hubert Nowak, Dariusz Rudnicki and Grzegor Zoledziowski. Also there was former yellow jersey and danger man Chris Newton (GB), making three GB men at the front. Julian Winn of Wales, Hichem Menad of France VC La Pomme, Carl Henni Brondberg of Denmark Jyll Distrikt and Andrew Randell of Canada Sympatico also made the break.

The climb of Healy pass saw a tired Tim Buckle (GB) and Pritchard dropped, with Newton, Cummings (both GB) and Danish strongman Hoogerd doing much of the driving.

The yellow jersey group was now 1'15" behind with Lancs Compensation Group duo Mark Lovett and John Tanner doing much of the work alongside some of the Ireland Stena Line squad.

On the helter-skelter descent of the Healy Pass, a crash in the chase group of Power saw two Danes fall, one going over a wall with bike in tow. Both re-mounted and finished the stage.

With 10kms to go the eight leaders had 45" on Power's yellow jersey group and the cat and mouse began. Zoledziowski and Rudnicki rode hard at the front for the Polish squad as Nowak marked danger man Winn at the back. Newton and Cummings, who earned today's merit award for his team riding were still trying hard to put time into Power but on the line it was the surprise package of Sympatico's Andrew Randell who took the stage from Newton and Nowak.

The Sympatico pro was delighted with the first-ever Canadian stage win on the Ras. "It was pretty aggressive this morning" he admitted, "the British guys wanted to put some time into Ciaran. They went away and the Irish guys took control of the race. The middle of the race was not too bad and then at the end I bridged across on the last climb and we worked hard and held a gap."

The strong headwind saw Randell change tactics on the road. "I was going to attack with a kilometre to go," he says " but I decided to wait for the sprint with the headwind. I stayed in the wheels and with 200 metres to go I just led it out. The race is very aggressive. With 5-man teams nobody can really control the race, so there's lots and lots of attacking. It's been a tough race for sure!"

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