Navan women posied for a demanding race
Race Around Ireland
Hazel Hall (left), Sheila Browne, Imelda Tully and Trish Tobin are all eager for the Race Around Ireland challenge.
The Navan Road Club women's team for the Race Around Ireland challenge will include Trish Tobin, Hazel Hall, Sheila Browne and Imelda Tully and will be known as the 'Pocket Rockets'.
The four women will have covered 15,000 miles in training before they hit the start line in Navan on Sunday 11th September and they will be the first women's team from Leinster to complete the course.
The Navan quartet will hope to smash the current women's record that stands at three days, 19 hours and 29 minutes held by a team from Northern Ireland.
Team chief Ciaran Crehan, a two-time finisher of the race, believes that this team will go very well. "They are very well prepared and they are totally motivated, I am delighted with their progress. They have come from leisure cycling background to being very serious cyclists," he told the Meath Chronicle this week.
"Last week they were only caught on the line in the highly competitive local league where lots of good racers take part. These women have some advantages, they are very focused and we will have no male egos to deal with!
"Apart from that, they function as a unit which is very encouraging," he added.
The seeds for this challenge were sown last October when the four Navan ladies decided to do a 'leisure cycle' from Navan to Drumshambo just to wind up their cycling season.
They joined a group of local cycling enthusiasts on an iconic cycle trip from Mizen Head to Malin Head. The enjoyment and success of that trip ignited a passion to take on Ireland's ultimate cycling challenge - the 'Race Around Ireland'.
Tully is a regular 'mile-eater' on her bike and she is looking forward to the challenge.
Browne, who has been appointed the team's climber extraordinaire, has been told she is likely to tackle the fearsome Gap of Mamore in Donegal, a climb that has a steeper average gradient than any climb in the Tour De France.
Tobin, who works in IT, reckons the team will have to average 15 mph in this non-stop event and thinks it is possible if the weather conditions are right.
Hall has a long pedigree in endurance racing having ridden 500 miles non-stop solo as part of a qualifying ride for the 1200-kilometre Paris-Brest-Paris race.
Mark Mullen Memorial
When Drogheda Wheelers CC promoted the final leg of the Mark Mullen Memorial Handicap League at Donore on Monday evening of last week it once again attracted a large entries and produced a unique overall result.
Going into the final leg, Gary Gorman (Stamullen M Donnelly) had a two-point advantage over Drogheda Wheelers' Ciaran Campbell with David Dargle (Stamullen) and Javan Nulty (Dunboyne Dectek) breathing down their necks.
On the final stage, Ciaran Clarke (Swords McNally) scored a great victory from his teammate Robert Staunton with Campbell finishing in third place.
The scratch group, which included the leader Gorman, failed by a mere 10 seconds to close the six-minute gap to the leading group, thus catapulting Campbell into the overall winning position and clinching the Mark Mullen Memorial Trophy.
In the under-age section, Sean O'Connell (Stamullen) who only three weeks ago bought his first racing bike to take up the sport, was rewarded with a clear victory in the stage over Laura Wall (Navan) with Michael Rock (Swords) in third. Gearoid Campbell, younger brother of Ciaran, emerged as the overall winner with 42 points.
In second place with 32 points was Emmett Gorman (Stamullen), Eoin Bracken (South East) was third, Michael Stenson (Lucan) was fourth, Wall was fifth.
