Celebration of fruitful season at Cuchulainn
CUCHULAINN Cycling Club held their end of year awards in the Spirit Store last week.
The night gives the club’s cyclists a chance to reflect on the past season, while also highlighting the progress made by one of the country’s biggest cycling clubs.
Club chairman Sé Weston addressed the crowd before kicking off the awards. Donal Kieran was voted as the Club Person of the Year. Donal was very active in the ever-growing leisure section of the club, as well as being involved in organising a number of trips away and helping out with the underage section.
The ‘Spirit’ award was presented to Pat Kilboy. Pat has helped many people get their start in cycling, and for a Galway man, his knowledge of local roads and places to stop for a coffee is second to none.
Callum McCaffrey and Rhiannon Dolan claimed the Male and Female Underage Cyclists of the year.
Barry Haughey was recognised as the Leisure Cyclist of the Year, while Jimmy Flynn on the back of numerous national medals was the road racing cyclist of the year.
Gerladine Kerr was voted Female Cyclist of the Year, while Teresa Bates, having made great strides in the sport this year, was the Most Improved Female Cyclist.
Most Improved Male Cyclist was Paul McCartney, while Brendan Foley was the Off-Road Cyclist of the Year.
The various league winners were also recognised, with Colin McGeown winning the Open En- duro league and Bendan Foley winning the Elite Enduro.
Ardee’s Tomas McCabe was the overall winner of the Bike Station Summer League, with Helen McShane winning the accompanying Cuchulainn Challenge Road League.
Finally, Kevin McDonald was applauded for winning the XC MTB League.
The club still has one event to go for 2018, with the New Year’s Eve Time Trial coming up on the 31st. IN keeping with the festive spirit, a cracker of a game saw Dundalk Under-15s overcome a previously undefeated Skerries team in beautiful conditions at Mill Road on Sunday.
Both sides deserve enormous credit for the manner in which this game was played throughout.
It had everything - skill, passion, physicality, hunger and desire, with the result in the melting pot right up to the final whistle.
There is no doubt that the hard work at training was responsible for a much improved performances from this Dundalk outfit.
While there are - as always - a number of key areas that will require huge improvement, the positive attitude shown to date will see these advances achieved, particularly over the Christmas period when the whole squad will be required to prepare for what will be an enormous Leinster League challenge in 2019.