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Under-Age All-Irelands, 1998
The 1998 Under-Age All Ireland Championships took place in Newtownards, Co. Down and the abiding memory of the event was the outstanding performance of Barry Meade. Despite setbacks, Barry achieved maximum points over the two days of events - a performance which has rarely been seen in the past. The first event of the weekend was the time-trial held on Saturday morning and Kanturk Cycling Club got off to a wonderful start with wins by Barry Meade and Michael Dennehy in the U-15 and U-16 events. This performance by Michael, along with his U-16 team mates, Stephen O'Sullivan and Cormac Daly, put them in the lead in the U-16 team competition. The criterion street racing took place on Saturday evening and the club took two more wins with Paudie O'Brien winning the U-14 race and Barry Meade taking the second win at U-15 level. Michael Dennehy was third in the U-16 race. The Road-Racing Championship took place on Sunday, and while being regarded as a separate championship the results are counted for the overall prizes. In the U-11 event, Noreen Curtin was one of the youngest contestants and gave a gutsy performance and Andrew Keneally's result was good enough to get him into the top 10 overall. In the U-12 race, Danny O'Connor suffered the frustration of being just out of the medals in fourth place. Eoin Daly had a very consistant performance over the three events and took fifth place in the U-13 race. Paudie O'Brien was assisted by team mate Anthony Tancred to get his second win medal when he sprinted to victory in the road race but missed out on being the best U-14 overall by just one point. Barry Meade was going for his third win in the U-15 category but word came back to the Kanturk supporters that he had crashed out of the main bunch. In spite of damaging his gears in the crash, Barry fought back to the main bunch and went on to win the bunch sprint for the line. This performance underlined the stature of his maximum points win over the two days of the event. The U-16 team of Michael Dennehy, Stephen O'Sullivan and Cormac Daly went into the road race in a good position to take the overall team prize and hoping for an individual win. Stephen O'Sullivan made an early break but was hauled back. Michael Dennehy was very active at the front of the bunch and did Trojan work in chasing down breaks. His efforts over the five hilly laps cost Michael in the final sprint where he came third but missed out on the overall individual medal by just two points. The team performance was good enough however to give them the gold medal for the team competition. The wonderful success of the club at these championships was marred somewhat by the nearby tragic events at Omagh which took place during the event but from an athletic point of view the journey was very worthwhile and brought another very active year to a successful conclusion. |