Well done to Eire Og Cycling Club Sligo for their fantastic organisation of the National Cycling Championships held in Sligo on the weekend of June 24th to 27th last. These events were a huge success and show that the sport of cycling is alive and well in the West of Ireland. Many big names including Tour De France 15th placer Nicholas Roche took part in this great weekend of cycle racing.

Innisfree Wheelers Cycling Club was not out of the picture here either. We had a number of racers taking part in events from the Time Trials to the Ladies Senior Race.

In the Time Trials Paul Keogh was fastest Innisfree Wheeler just missing out on breaking the 1 hour barrier for the 40km event. This was a tough course held between the roundabouts at Summerhill and Collooney on a two lap circuit with some undulating hills causing not a small amount of pain to the time-triallers. Next home for Innisfree Wheelers was the ever-green and experienced Seamus McGowan in just under 1:04. Timmy McCarthy completed the Innisfree line-up in this event finishing strongly in 1:11. Well done to these racers who represented our club in this top-class event and accounted very well for themselves.

In the Tandem section Alan Kelly and John Goldrick took part in the time trial event and returned a great performance here also. They returned a time of just over 30 minutes for the 20 km event which left them just outside of a medal position. Well done to both of these cyclists who have put many miles of training in on this tandem over the entire season.

In the Ladies Race held over a tough course at Ballymote, Colette Hennigan represented the club and cycled a very couragous race against some very experienced opposition. Many of the participants dropped out of this event but Colette hung on to complete in a very impressive time.

In the Ladies Time Trial event Colette returned a time of just over 30 minutes for the 20km event. This was a super time considering the tough course and left Colette in a position not far short of a national medal. Well done to Colette for a superb weekends racing at National level representing our club.