Liam O'Brien races in Belgium
Young Fermoy cyclist Liam O’Brien is off to Belgium this weekend, where he will be racing in 2 major international races against top level competition.
Liam is in his final year as a junior cyclist as he is linked with a strong team in Belgium, with whom he plans to race during the season in major events.
On Saturday he will be racing in the junior version of the Classic Liege - Bastogne - Liege event and on Sunday in the Bob Jungels Classic, where he will be achieving major international competition. He is wished all the best for the weekend. He was racing in Kanturk at the weekend, where he was defending success in last year’s event in the Kanturk 3-day.
He was well placed to challenge for overall victory in the opening stage, finishing in the same time as the stage winner.
However in the time trial that followed, he punctured and riding on the flat tyre he still managed to win the time trial, but only by 1 second and not enough to take the overall lead.
He tried hard again on Monday’s final stage but only managed to get 4th place, after trying hard throughout, so there was no repeat of his 2022 overall win. His younger brother Shane took 8th place overall in the U14 grade.
It was a busy weekend’s racing on the mountain bike front for some of the young Fermoy Cycling Club members and a successful one it was too.
Firstly on Saturday in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, Mia Geary was first in the U16 girls race and was 2nd overall of boys and girls. Dean Sheridan was 5th in the boys U12 race with James Geary 5th in the boys U14 and Colm Geary just getting into the top 10 in the U10’s with Max McGrath getting 2nd place in this race also. Dan and Conor McGrath also did well finishing 2nd in the U18 and 1st in the U16 respectively.
There was further racing in Offaly on Sunday and here Mia Geary was 1st girl and 1st overall, Dean Sheridan 2nd, James Geary 4th in their respective categories, with younger brother Colm just getting into the top 10 also, to complete a great weekend of mountain bike racing for the Fermoy cyclists.
Congratulations must go to Fermoy cyclists Donal Murphy and Brian Baker who successfully completed the 312 kilometres endurance event in Majorca on Saturday. That was one long days cycling with lots of mountain riding.