Clancy stage victory brightens up Tour of Korea for Rapha

Ed Clancy took his first win for Rapha-Condor-Sharp in the fifth stage of the Tour of Korea, proving that John Herety's team are fighting back after jet lag affected their initial performance in the race.

Clancy beat former Tour de France stage winner Jaan Kirsipuu (Champion System) into Chungju this morning, proving he has got over both the illness which ruled him out of March's track world championships and the problems the team had acclimatising in the Far East.

His victory came just a day after he finished third behind Kirsipuu into Dangjin, the highest individual placing the boys in black had posted in the race at that point.

With Zak Dempster taking Sunday's Rutland-Melton CiCLE Classic, this was Rapha's second UCI-ranked race victory in 36 hours.

Herety praised the former Motorpoint rider, saying: "Ed was fantastic today, he was only narrowly beaten yesterday and so we committed to him during the whole stage.

"Kristian House did a great job pacing Ed through the difficult climbs on the mid section of the stage, then from a kilometre and a half out first Dean Windsor, and then Andy Tennant gave Ed the perfect lead out."

He added: "Once it was over to Ed he was unstoppable, he made sure he did a fantastic job of it too, even lunging for the line instead of celebrating just to be absolutely sure!

"It's great for Ed to have shouldered this responsibility and won so convincingly."

Having arrived in Korea shortly before the race began, Rapha suffered a difficult opening stage, with only Andy Tennant and Jon Tiernan-Locke finishing within two minutes of the stage winner.

However, Tennant finished sixth on stage two and fifth the following day, before Clancy was narrowly pipped in yesterday's finish.

The race continues tomorrow with a 138.8km stage from today's finishing city of Chungju to Yeongju, and finishes in Seoul on Saturday.

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