Irish cycling review & preview

By Tommy Campbell

There is no doubt that the promotion of competitive cycling on the domestic scene in Ireland has not abated since the start of the season and with three Sundays left, it is all go with six scheduled events.

Included in the listing is the Adare Two-day, which will based at the Woodlands Hotel in the village on Saturday and Sunday. The event is reserved for all bar the Senior A's, which will exclude the standard bearers from Co. Mayo, David O'Loughlin (Cong) and Padraig Marrey (Ballinrobe).

For the second weekend in August, O'Loughlin set the bar with another Irish title to his credit, the time trial in Derry, but surely Marrey's exploits in lowering the Mizen Head to Malen Head record by a staggering 49 minutes is mind boggling as it was a solo effort.

"I was finding the going hard, but my back-up team told me that Mayo were in the All Ireland Football Final! A real sense of urgency propelled me to go that little bit faster," said Marrey.

Spare a thought for Paul O'Donoghue, who only three weeks previous, had lowered the previous best by Joe Barr in 1993 with a time of 19hrs 3mins 16secs. The new standard is 17hrs.48mins, beating O'Donoghue's record by 49 minutes.