Vandenbergh seals overall win as Marcato wins final stage
Marco Marcato of Team LPR won Sunday’s final stage of the Tour of Ireland cycle race.
After 147km from Athlone to Dublin, the Italian was fastest in a three man group sprint to take the victory on Merrion Square.
Thomas Berkhout (Rabobank) of Holland finished second with Ireland's David O’Loughlin (Navigators) crossing the line in third.
As expected Sjijn Vandenbergh (Unibet.com) crossed the line safely in the main bunch to seal overall victory in the frist running of the five-day stage race.
The Belgian has been in yellow since winning Wednesday’s decisive first stage into Cork.
Today's decisive break formed after 62km when Mayoman O'Loughlin attacked off the front and he was quickly followed by Berkhout and Maracato.
The trio quickly opened up a five minutes gap back to the peloton.
At the mid-point in the race the bunch picked up the chase, but there was disorder among the bigger teams on how to share the chase work, and the three escapees profited from this to beat the bunch to the circuit finish in Dublin, where Marcato was fastest.
