Silver Medal for AJ!

Mctc's Ever impressive Aj Murphy secured yet another medal this year at the National TT championships in Cunja Mayo last weekend in a strong field.

The event saw the TT Nationals for Junior Males, Junior Female, and Masters 40s and 50s.

Aj was just pipped into the silver medal spot in the M50 Cat but impressivley his time would have been good enough to podium in the M40 category as well showing just how strong AJ is.

Well done yet again

Results

1 John Madden Dig Deep 32:34:41 2 AJ Murphy Midleton CTC 33:17:50 3 Gerard Maguire Phoenix CC 34:29:32 4 Brian Hammond Lucan CRC 35:47:52 5 John Foote North Tipp 38:25:44 6 Eamonn Hartley Comeragh CC 40:31:26

National junior Girl’s Cycling Championships

Last weekend I headed up to Cong, Co. Mayo for the national junior girl’s cycling championships.

It was a historic event as it was the first ever Irish junior girls nationals held.

In previous years the numbers of girls have been too low to hold an event.

The TT took place on Saturday evening on a lumpy, 23.5km circuit. I felt a bit out of place on a normal racer, surrounded by top of the range carbon TT bikes, but nonetheless I pushed myself hard and there is no doubt that it was a great lung opener for the road race!!

The road race took place on Sunday with the junior girls racing one lap of a 56km circuit. Only 10 girls were competing, but it was enough to hold the race which was the main thing! The standard of racing was very high, with girls from teams like NRPT, Cadence and the Sundrive track team competing. I stayed with the main group for the first 20km or so, until the bunch split. I then slotted in with 3 other girls and we worked together. There was one main climb on the course and here I dropped one of the girls and kept riding with the two others. On the second, smaller climb we dropped another girl. Aisling Desmond from Galtee Wheelers and I worked together for the remainder of the race and we finished together.

It was a great weekend of racing, I learned a lot and I am proud to have worn the club colours in such a historic event.

National Junior Triathlon Championships

Last Sunday, 2nd August, Alanna Drennan was competing in the National junior triathlon championships in Loughrea, Galway, in the 12-13 age category. Luckily the weather held up and the race went well. Alanna was 8th girl out of the water and after a strong cycle had moved up to 3rd position. On a flat, out and back run she was able to hold off her closest rival and finished 3rd girl overall. This is a strong improvement on her 5th placing last year and it is clear the hard training is paying off. Alanna's focus now changes to the National underage cycling champs at the end of August.