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Accommodation Booking Form
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County Team Request Form
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Riders Declaration Of Awareness
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Congratulations To Martyn Irvine From The Organisers Of The An Post Rás
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| World Champion 2013 Martyn Irvine |
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An Post Rás Route To Prove A Stern Test For Riders
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| Tony Campbell An Post Rás Race Director |
GPO, Dublin, 29thJanuary: The 2013 An Post Rás route was announced this morning at the GPO. A demanding eight days of competition faces the riders with the 61st edition of the race featuring over 1180 kilometres of cycling and no less than 33 categorised climbs, four of which are category one mountains.
Two time Rás winner and former Olympian Ciaran Power was on hand to launch the annual international cycle race at the GPO today along with amateur county riders Brian Ahern and Robin Kelly and newly appointed Rás organiser, Tony Campbell.
Campbell, who recently took over the reins from Dermot Dignam, insists the mixture of flat and mountainous stages was designed to strike the right balance while also providing the amateur riders with a better chance of competing against the top teams.
“It is a different type of course this year. The route designer, Stephen O’Sullivan wanted to make some changes. The first three stages are pretty flat, which will keep the time gaps close and the suspense high. You don’t need the hills to have good racing. It’s up to the riders to be aggressive and to break things up.
Part of the thinking was to provide encouragement to the Irish riders to race, as they should be able to compete against the professional teams. The stages are of a length to encourage them to race hard over that distance. But there are also a couple of stages with plenty of hills, and that will give the climbers the chance to make a difference”, Campbell said.
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| The Route Map |
A new and exciting aspect of the race for Irish riders will be the addition of a ‘County Rider’ jersey. This will spice up the action between the county teams as they compete to claim the jersey and local glory that goes with it on each day of the race.
The world-ranked race begins in Dunboyne on Sunday 19th May, the fourth consecutive year it has started there. It will then move counter-clockwise around the country, and includes stage finishes in Longford, Nenagh, Listowel, Killarney, Glengarriff, Mitchelstown, Carlow and Naas, before concluding on Sunday 26th May with the customary finale in Skerries, North County Dublin.
Campbell expects that as usual, the race will be a much sought after event in the cycling calendar by strong international professional and national teams from Europe and further afield. More>>>
Punctures, Pedalling And Putting Them Up Is Edwards Annual Job
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| Eddie Dawson |
From Mending punctures in jig time to now sourcing accommodation for an entourage of over 500 right around the country, it's little wonder that the name of Ballon man Edward Dawson has become synonymous with Ireland's unique cycling event, The Rás.
Edward from Maple Lawn, Ballon has been involved in the International Cycle Race for the past 36 years, beginning first as a participant to now becoming one of the event's main organisers.
The FBD Insurance Rás, which this week is passing through towns and villages throughout the country, is now regarded as the biggest international amateur event in Europe attracting teams from all over the world.
The event has therefore developed into a mammoth task of organisation with accommodation to be sourced in all the race stops, route maps to be finalised and the teams to be adequately catered for throughout the event. More>>>
New Organiser For An Post Rás
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| Tony Campbell Race Director |
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| Eddie Dawson Assistant Race Director |
An Post Rás Route Director, Tony Campbell, will take over as organiser of the 8 day international cycle race following Dermot Dignam’s decision to retire from the position within the next few weeks.
“it’s the next logical step to a process we started two years ago” Dignam explains “we very successfully set up a working group with a view to attracting younger people into the race organisation and now with the benefit of experience they are ready to assume greater responsibility”.
Tony Campbell has vast experience at different levels in the race and worked closely with Dignam for many years. The man with the mammoth task of arranging accommodation for the huge entourage each year, Eddie Dawson, will continue to look after accommodation as well being Assistant Race Director. More>>>
Famous Names In The Rás
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| Shay O'Hanlon, 62,65,66,67 |
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| Paddy Flanagan, 60, 64, 75 |
The 2008 FBD Insurance Rás rolls off from Navan on Sunday, May 18, and a week later another chapter in the history of the famous race, which began as a two-day event in 1953, will be completed with the finish in Skerries, Co. Dublin.
The race was called An Rás Tailteann for 30 years until the word “Tailteann” was dropped in 1984. Many older followers of cycling in this country regret that change but they retain fond memories of the giants of the road when it was purely an amateur event.
Riders like Gene Mangan and Mick Murphy from Kerry and Ben McKenna of Meath, winners in the 1950’s, were as well known as intercounty footballers from those counties at the time, and they were followed by two men who hold a special place in the history of the race.
Paddy Flanagan from Kildare was the overall victor three times between 1960 and 1975 and Dublin ace Shay O’Hanlon triumphed four times, first in 1962 and then a 1965 to 1967 three-in-a-row.
Paddy was just 16 years old when cycling on an ‘ordinary’ bike from his home in Kildangan, Co. Kildare, to Monasterevin when passed by a group of six racing cyclists from the local Midland Cycling Club who were out on a training spin.
Young Flanagan got in behind the group and when the speed went up, the racers were surprised that the teenager was still with them. So with the spin reaching its conclusion, they tried to drop the ‘intruder’ but instead it was four of the original sextet who dropped back while Paddy stayed with the other two. More>>>
Billy Kerr Honest Workman
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| Billy Kerr |
A man who has captured the imagination of many sports-followers beyond the fringe of cycle-racing fraternity this season is big genial Billy Kerr from Ballymena.
At the age of 34 he won this Easter Tour of the North five-day international race in Ulster, for the second successive year, and then immediately flew to Manchester to start the Sealink International, of similar duration, the very next day. To everyone’s amazement – not least the teams from Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Netherlands, Canada, Norway and Denmark – he won Sealink too.
This mid-Antrim man has left no doubt that despite all his participation in international events across the world – his travels last season included Canada and West Germany, and he was ninth in the 14-day Tour of Britain – he’s looking forward specially to competing for the first time in this big National Cycling Association promotion, the Health Race. Like many other Northern Ireland C.F. riders he enjoys racing over tough routes in the Wicklow Mountains and on many hard testing sections in the West – from Donegal right down to Valencia. More>>>
Stage Racing In Ireland
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| Henri Desgrange Founder Of The Tour de France 1903 |
Ever since Henri Desgranges founded the fabulous Tour de France away back in the early 1900’s, stage racing has caught the imagination of cyclists all over the world.
Here in Ireland the call came later than in most countries. Proximity to England caused the road sport to develop along Time Trial lines. However, even time-trialling was a poor relation branch of the sport for Track Racing was the big attraction.
The Split in 1949 swept away all the NCA roadmen leaving the NCA predominantly a track racing association with virtually no time-triallists so what road racing there was became Massed Start.
As the NCA regained strength this branch of the sport started tothrive and a road-racing calendar became established and naturally, fed on a diet of cycling reading which highlighted the Tour de France and such legendary figures as Coppi, Kubler, etc. the roadmen started to think in terms of stage racing.
The first stage was held in August 1950 when the Western CC, Belfast, put on a Belfast – Dublin – Belfast Two-Day for the Irish News Cup. (The Western had run a Belfast-Dublin one-day race since 1948).
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