Life in the

Sports reporter CARRICK Mountain in Glenealy hosted the Irish Downhill Mountain Bike National Championship over the weekend and organiser Dave Egan was a tired man when we caught up with him.

“We had 160 riders, we’d guys from West Cork all the way up to Antrim and Down.

“The track was running faster than ever, it was extremely fast and dry today, lots of punctures. James McFerran won the elite category in a time of 2:20 and the second fastest time was Jack Crowley in the Junior category. Conor Lawless from Glenealy came third in the Junior.”

There were two camera crews at the event and one had a drone that captured footage at the top of the mountain. For more information it’s possible to visit Dave’s website proline.ie or the website for the Irish Downhill Mountain Bike Series, irishdownhillseries. com, to see the full results and photographs from the day.

There are two more events in the series left in Bree and in Cahir as the mountain biking year draws to a close. The season runs from April to September and riders will either compete in Enduro or Proline will organise winter races.

Some of the riders have a Cycling Ireland licence and others don’t and therefore there were two prizegivings at the event.

“We had a representative from Cycling Ireland on both days and on Sunday they awarded the Cycling Ireland National Championship medals to the Irish licence holders. And then we awarded our prizes to the fastest times in the categories if they were non Irish licence holders.”

The event wasn’t only about the mountain biking as it also raised €600 for the RNLI between a collection at the car park and a raffle. Dave wanted to mention the contribution from the Red Cross.

“The Red Cross provided the medical cover. They had two ambulances there and they were really good.”