Cyclists bring home a drawer full of jerseys

LAST weekend saw the O’Leary Stone Kanturk Cycling Club travel to Letterkenny for the 2017 Errigal International Youth Tour and bring home the yellow jersey.

It is considered one of the toughest weekend race events for youth cyclists at international level with cyclists from all over Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Malta, Isle of Man and France competing together.

The Kanturk club had cyclists competing in all age groups with some cycling with the Irish and Munster Academy Teams. Willem O’Connor, Stephen Sheehan and Michael Nolan made up the O’Leary Stone Kanturk U12 team.

In U14, David Shine cycled with the Irish Youth Academy team and Ronan Leahy, Luke Moynihan and Patrick Morley in the Kanturk team.

In U16, Sean Barrett and Tom Moriarty cycled with the Irish Youth Academy team, Denis Murphy, Tom O’Connor, Luke Thompson and Daniel Yonhin rode for the Munster Youth Academy, and Arnaud Dumoulin, Eoghan Patwell and Lucy O’Donnell made up the O’Leary Stone Kanturk team.

On Saturday, Stage 1 took the cyclists on a hilly stage. The O’Leary Stone Club had great results with U12 Quillan Donnelly coming 4th, earning him the Green jersey, in U14 David Shine took the honours of 1st place earning him the Yellow, Green, Polka Dot Jersey.

In U16 Lucy O’Donnell was the first girl home so she won the Pink Jersey, and Tom Moriarty was 3rd in U16 getting the White jersey. All in all it was a great result for the club even though some of the younger cyclists had some falls.

Sunday morning started with a time trial. In U16 Lucy O’Donnell came 1st in the girls Time Trial. In the U16 boys, Luke Thompson was 1st U15 and Tom Moriarty 2nd U15.

Following a strong performance David Shine U14 still retained the Yellow Jersey facing into Stage 3.

Stage 3 is known as the Keelloges Stage and it takes the riders over a lap of 9.75k of the Donegal hills. U12 had to complete 1 lap, U14 3 laps and U16 5 laps of a gru-eling testing course. Ewen McConville U12 took 2nd in stage 3, Lucy O’Donnell took 2nd in the girls U16, Tom Moriarty was 2nd U15.

Well done to all the cyclists for finishing this stage!

Monday saw the final stage 4, a criterium around the retail park in Letterkenny. This is a fast technical course sometimes seeing speeds as high as 45kph over a 1.2k loop. Ewen McConville took a photo finish close 2nd in this and finished 4th overall in GC.

This was a great result and the Munster U12 team of Ewen McConville,

Sean Tarrant and Quillan Donnelly took the team prize. In U14 David Shine was 1st U13 rider, however due to fantastic riding from David, he retained the Yellow Jersey.

The Irish Youth Academy team which David rode for also won the U14 team prize. David was also presented with the White U13 winners Jersey and the King of the Mountains winner U14 Trophy.

Lucy O’Donnell won the U16 girls criterium and was also the Overall U16 girls winnerbringing home the Pink Jersey and Tom Moriarty was the 1st unplaced U15 overall winner.

It was a great weekend of cycling and all our cyclists did themselves proud.

Meanwhile, Darragh O’Mahony was taking part in the mens U23 road championships in Denmark with the Irish team.

Training continues for all the members with the Youth National Championships only two weeks away.