WITH just a week to go to the start of the cycling season, some changes have been necessary to the FIC Board of 10 and Tommy Campbell has switched back to his preferred role as publicity officer.
When Karen Madden retired last year, Conor Lally was elected at the annual general meeting in Malahide in November to take over the PRO duties but he has now resigned and Campbell, who was chairman of the coaching committee, moves back to the position he last held in 1994.
Campbell was unhappy in the coaching job and Brendan Donoghue fills the vacancy there.
Campbell had completed arrangements for a coaching course for mountain bike enthusiasts this weekend. It will be at Tiglin, Ashford, with a full complement of 50 to attend. Olympic representatives Martin Earley and Alastair Martin will be there to give advice.
New Zealander Sue McPherson is the new manager of the women's squad but the vacancy as junior squad manager has not been filled yet.
Dermot Dignam, organiser of the FBD Milk Ras in May, has not applied for a date for the five day event he hoped to stage in September but he has not abandoned the project. Last year Dignam had Ris Clann Brugha listed for September 4th to 8th but when he failed to attract a sponsor, he called it off. He continued. to look for financial backing for. the venture but when nothing definite materialised up to last month, he did not put the date down on the list of fixtures.
"I have not completely abandoned all hopes," he said, " the problem is the lack of a worthwhile sponsor. There are a couple of possibilities but I could not get a definite agreement so I did not put the date on the calendar."
Dignam added: "There are a few smaller sponsors waiting but an event like we have in mind, second only to the Ras, needs adequate funding. Although it is not in the official list we could still go ahead and put it on the road if we had six or eight weeks notice."
Dignam is very involved just now with plans for the Ras from May 17th to 25th but he has in mind the week in between the AllIreland hurling and football finals for this other promotion. However, with the format changed for those championsips this the finals are later than usual - September 14th and 28th - so the likely date for the race would then be from September 17th to 21st.
As a sponsor would probably have some say in where the race would go, Dignam has no route planned but he said: "On the first, third and fifth days there would be stages of about 85 miles with a time trial and criteriums on the other days."
. Belgian rider Johan Museeuw took his third stage win in the five day Ruta del Sol yesterday, but was unable to prevent overall victory going to Erik Zabel, who bad led the race from the start.
