Irish Team update

[Gar]

National Irish XC Team race report

Sunday 11th May:
Race Event: Benelux Cup : GP Van Vlaanderen,


An Irish team comprising of three junior ( Liam Mc Greevey, Neil Mc Gimpsey and Paul O’ Reilly) , one Espoir ( Connor Mc Convey) and one Senior ( Niall Davis) travelled to the third round of the Benelux cup held in Ronse, Belgium last Sunday.
The riders were supported by a mechanic ( Mr.Stephen Beirne), Masseur (Mr. Ciaran Gormley), Manager ( Ms.Tarja Owens) and the Irish High Performance director, Frank Campbell.

There was a large field of riders competing in this joint three countries Cup,(between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg), in preparation for the forth-coming European Championships, that will be held in St. Wendel, Germany on May 18th.

The junior men started with a good grid position in a field of 90 riders. The race was won by the Dutch National Champion, with Liam Mc Greevey racing well in 35 degree heat to take a 15th place. Paul O’ Reilly had a good start, but suffered a puncture on the 2nd  lap, which dropped him back in the field, however he fought his way back to finish 33rd. Likewise, Neil Mc Gimpsey suffered mechanical trouble after being involved in a collision in the early part of the race, causing him to loose chain ring bolts from his front chain set, but he battled on to finish a solid 43rd place

The Elite men’s race started at 14.30, with the day temperature in the high 30’s degrees. Both riders had a good start gird position, which helped in a field of 115 riders.
Connor Mc Convey had a fantastic start, coming around onto lap two in the lead bunch of 4 riders, comprising of Chris Jongewaard (Australia and Oceanic Champion), Thijs Al (Nederlands) and Bjorn Brems (Belgium/Team Saeco).
With Niall Davis following 40 sec after in 18th position, after getting caught behind a collision at the start.

The race circuit is considered one of the fastest tracks in the Benelux Cup, which is perfect preparation for next weekends European Championships which will be held in St. Wendel, Germany, and is known as a fast circuit.

Connor rode on to finish 8th overall and second place espoir, behind belgium’s number one, Bjorn Brems. Niall Davis finishing 13th overall.

All riders rode exceptionally well, which is a great start to the new cross country team structure, which is following on from the solid work that the Irish MTB Commision put in place over the past three years.
The team will stay at the Irish house in Belgium for a week of training and testing, before travelling onto St. Wendel in Germany for the European Championships.

Tarja Owens
XC MTB
Squad Manger

[Dave]

Beat you to it, on the frontpage!!!

[Gar]

d'oh....

where are all the pics of your bike then?

[Dave]

The new one?

[tadhg]

very good....niall and squeak......excelent results......hope you's were wearing the imbrc jerseys....

[Dave]

Irish Team kit all the way....

[tadhg]

oh yea of course forgot......they should at least be training in their imbrc gear

[squeak]

Just back from Italy there yesterday, super trip!

first race (Liquigas Cup)  class 1 was on the weekend I left,got 16th of 60 in that so super happy and then the training camp was on for the rest of the week, some seriously savage training done with the gang!!
Niall and everybody is very well over there.
Myself and Liam will be heading to the Worlds there in a couple of weeks so can't wait for that! The worlds course is pretty savage, big ass climb and some sweet singletrack, then a long climby fireroad to the back of the course and the decend back to the start/finish...got to train really hard on it there so happy as larry. Tired now after the week(17hrs intense) but looking forward to getting out on the bike training this week again and feeling fresh, so hope to see some faces out there too.

Cheers, Squeak.