Strong field set for Elliott event

CYCLING: This Sunday the most prestigious Irish one-day event outside of the national championships will take place on the roads of Wicklow, honouring Ireland's first yellow jersey winner in the Tour de France. The Shay Elliott Memorial will see a strong field scrap it out over 164 tough kilometres, starting and finishing in Bray.

Ireland's two continental teams will enter squads. The Sean Kelly-ACLVB M Donnelly squad will seek to emulate Kelly's own successes in 1974 and 1975, before he embarked on a highly successful pro career.

The Murphy and Gunn/Newlyn Group team come into the race after their strong showing in last weekend's Rás Mumhan in Kerry, where Paul Healion won a stage, the overall plus the points classification.

The field will also include some strong Irish domestic squads and several foreign teams. Among those travelling over to the Murphy and Gunn/Stena Line-backed event is former Tour of Spain points jersey winner Malcolm Elliott.

The Bray Wheelers promotion begins at Bray Town Hall at 10:30am and finishes at Fassaroe Lane off the N11 at 2:30pm.

Meanwhile, as the countdown continues to this year's FBD Insurance Rás on Sunday, May 21st, race organiser Dermot Dignam has announced yet another strong foreign team to compete in the 2.2 world ranked race.

Following their successful showing in the 2002 edition, the Poland Legia-Bazyliszek hope to take up where they left off four years ago. Then, Hubert Nowak won the best young rider competition, was third overall and third in the points classification.

His team-mate Dariusz Rudnicki won stage five into Midleton, took two other top five placings and was fifth in the final points rankings. The squad were best international team on three stages, and finished third overall in that classification.

Siobhán Dervan finished in the bunch in the world-ranked Ronde Van Gelderland at the weekend, placing 41st, then took ninth in both the Begijnendijk and Westkerke circuit race in Belgium.