Para Cycling Road Race and Track National Championships Results
It was a bumper weekend for para cycling as June 20th and 21st saw para athletes fight for national championships in both road races and track events.
Saturday’s road racing action took place in Corkagh Park in Dublin and brought an incredibly strong field across all categories.
World Champion and recent European Championship medallist pairing Katie-George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly took top spot in their WB category. Sinead Greenan came into the weekend off the back of a medal filled European Championship debut, and was piloted by Claire Ní Reachtagain to second place, with Jessica Kennedy and Lauren Garvey took third.
Ciaran O’Toole and Con Scully followed up their own European Championship debut last week with another strong performance, taking the MB National Championship. O’Toole and Scully took top spot ahead of Paralympic pairing and recent World Cup medallists Damien Vereker and Mitchell McLaughlin in second and Ben Cussen and Richard Barry in third.
Allister MacSorley added a handbike national championship to his recent UCI World Cup medal, as he finished ahead of Steven McGowan and Seamus Wall in second and third respectively in the combined MH3 and MH4 race.
A combined solo bike race saw European Champion Richael Timothy take top spot ahead of Cormac O’Callaghan in second and recent European championship debutant and medallist Heather Jameson in third.
In the Junior race Senan Darcy took the win ahead of Ciaran Kelly.
Sunday saw riders head for Sundrive Velodrome and the Para Cycling Track National Championships.
Paralympian Josephine Healion was back on track and took top spot in the B Sprint event, piloted by Robyn Beggs. Stephen de Vries and Harvey Barnes took second, aead of Ben Cussen and Marcin Mizgajski in third.
Damien Vereker and Mitchell McLaughlin added another national championship to their tally in the B individual pursuit. Ciaran O’Toole and Con Scully continued their strong season with a second place ahead of Jessica Kennedy and Lauren Garvey.
Josephine Healion and Robyn Beggs took their second win of the day in the B Kilo, ahead of Stephen de Vries and Harvey Barnes in second and Ben Cussen and Marcin Mizgajski in third.
Chris Burns, recently announced as being part of the Northern Ireland team heading to the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, stood atop the podium for the Flying 200 event on Sunday. Heather Jameson took second place in the mixed field, 0.3 seconds back, while Cormac O’Callaghan took third.
The podium was repeated for both the C class Kilo and Scratch race, with Burns taking the win from Jameson and O’Callaghan.
Para riders will now head for Mayo on Thursday, June 25th, to compete for the TT National Championship as part of the wider Road National Championships.