CYCLING NEWS:WHAT COULD well be the best season in decades for Irish riders is continuing to draw closer, with the four UCI ProTeam members soon about to start racing. National road race champion Matt Brammeier has headed to the Gulf with his HTC Highroad team-mates and will begin the Tour of Qatar on Sunday.
He will line out in the six-day event alongside the Irish-sponsored An Post M Donnelly Grant Thornton Seán Kelly team, which will contain new professional rider, Sam Bennett, as well as longtime member Mark Cassidy and several other foreign riders.
Bennett, Cassidy and Brammeier are also expected to take part in the Tour of Oman, which runs next weekend.
Meanwhile, their An Post team-mates Ronan McLaughlin and Philip Lavery have already started competing and began the Etoile des Bessèges stage race on Wednesday.
They will use the first couple of days to settle in, then will see what they can do.
Brammeier aside, Ireland’s other ProTeam riders are getting close to their own start of the season. On Sunday, Philip Deignan will line out with his RadioShack team in the first day of the Challenge Mallorca races. He has been training well and appears to have got over the illness which hampered his 2010 season.
Dan Martin will then begin the six-day Tour of the Mediterranean on Tuesday, and will then do the Tour du Haut Var.
“I’m feeling pretty good and really looking forward to racing again now,” he told The Irish Times yesterday.
“The training camps went perfectly, the team atmosphere is great and I was amazed at the overall level of fitness of all the (Garmin-Cervélo) guys. It is very impressive and I think we are in for a good season.”
His cousin Nicolas Roche had planned on starting in the Etoile de Bessèges but has had some niggling knee issues. He will instead get his season under way in the Volta ao Algarve, which sets off Wednesday and runs until Sunday week. Roche had a superb 2010 and wants to build on what he achieved.
Meanwhile, the route of this year’s An Post Rás will be revealed on Monday. Race director Dermot Dignam has said an interesting course has been drawn up by new route director Stephen O’Sullivan, who is part of the working group which is helping Dignam run this year’s race.
FIXTURES
Saturday: Cycling Ulster Development Camp, Silver Birch Hotel, Omagh, Co Tyrone.
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