While The Tour of the Mournes is on at Newry tomorrow, it is a blank day for racing on Sunday because of the Mars Challenge, when nearly 2,000 are expected to take part in a leisure cycle over the circuit for stage one of the Tour de France a week later. The Carrick-on-Suir Tour programme of events also includes a similar outing on Sunday over the stage two route from Enniscorthy to Cork. The Sunday before the Tour is championship day in other countries but the Irish title races were brought forward a week to leave the day clear for the leisure spins.
There was some controversy in the senior race at Collon last Sunday. Ray Clarke of the Premier team in Clonmel emerged best after lively competition over eight laps of a good circuit of 13.8 miles. At the finish Clarke won, sitting up, with about 10 lengths to spare over David McCann with Ian Chivers third. Approaching the finish it developed into a battle between the reigning champion Morgan Fox, McCann and Clarke, who were second and third last year. As they raced down through the town for the last time before a left-hand turn into the 500 yards finishing straight, Clarke, McCann and Fox were at the front but Fox crashed heavily as they tried to negotiate one of the traffic islands and bollards and Clarke went on to take the title with McCann second again, just ahead of the 1992 champion, Chivers.
Paddy Moriarty was fourth followed by Conor Henry and Fox struggled in to take sixth place a minute and 51 seconds in arrears. Before Fox was taken into the ambulance for attention to his damaged right arm, he had an angry altercation with Clarke but it is impossible to apportion blame in such circumstances.
They had gone through the hazardous area on seven previous laps and they all had sufficient opportunity to check it out before the start, too. Unfortunately Fox was unable to stay upright in a tight situation after a keenly contested 110 miles.
Tomorrow's Tour of the Mournes is the sixth of 10 events to count in the Callcard Classic League and it will be a good test for Tommy Evans, who is the clear leader. He has 46 points with Kieran MacMahon next on 21. Evans missed an early break last Sunday and then retired with two laps to go when he could not bridge the gap across with McCann.
Next Wednesday night there will be a novel pre-Tour de France attraction at the charity greyhound racing meeting in Shelbourne Park. Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche head a group who will take part in two six-man heats on the dog track with the first three in each going into the final. The other former professionals and Tour de France participants Martin Earley, Paul Kimmage and Laurence Roche have agreed to join in, too, while Charlie Mottet, Gerard Rue and Acacio da Silva will also be there.
The team of Martin Earley and Robin Seymour with Scot Robert Millar and Englishman Jamie Norfolk finished second in the 24-hour mountain bike relay event at Trentham Gardens, Stoke, last weekend. After stints of one hour around the 10 miles circuit they beat all except Raleigh and earned £3,000 between them.
