CYCLING: Former top professional Sean Kelly had a return to winning ways yesterday when he took the keenly contested Christmas Hamper race near Carrick on Suir, reports Shane Stokes.

The Hibernian NCBI rider, who last won the race back in 1994, was part of a group of veteran competitors who started off five minutes ahead of the scratch group of first-category riders. Over the 30 mile race around the village of Mothel, this latter group managed to reduce this advantage all the way to the finish.

In the final 200 metres, Kelly unleashed his famous burst to outsprint Omagh's Mick Gannon and Phil Cassidy.

GAELIC GAMES: A call for regular, ongoing and planned Government funding for the GAA was made by Con Hogan, chairman at Tipperary GAA convention in Thurles yesterday.

Hogan expressed satisfaction that the Government recognised that for every pound spent on sport, many more are spared on the social services and the penal system.

"We appreciate this year's major contribution to the GAA by Government, its support of development through the National Lottery and the commitment to support our national coaching programme," he said.

Sligo county board youth officer, Michael Donnellan, has called on the association to stop promoting alcohol.

"The great and historic game of hurling should not be used to legitimise and give respectability to a product or an industry which contributes to such human misery at all levels in society," he said.

Donnellan told the Sligo county convention that there was a growing need in the GAA for increased investment in the socially deprived areas to provide young people with sport and an alternative to alcohol and other drugs.