Doherty And Harkness Shine in Newry 3 Day on busy weekend for club (full roundup)
U16 Academy Rider Aine Doherty and U23 Darcey Harkness riding for Cycling Ulster took the inaugural ladies Newry 3 Day by storm this weekend, Aine given special permission by Cycling Ireland to ride finished the tough 3 day event, which began in tough wet conditions on Friday night, in third place overall only 11 seconds behind two A3 riders from UCD. Darcey riding for Cycling Ulster this weekend finished in 10th place overall, only 41 seconds down after a super win on the opening stage on Friday Night.
The top ten girls all went into the final stage on the same time but an impressive ride up the Spelga Dam climb to the finish seen Aine work her way up to 3rd overall and the blue jersey for first junior lady impressive for a second year U16 against the top ladies in the country.
VC Glendale and the Academy had 5 riders in the main senior event, two juniors Darragh Doherty and Travis Harkness and three senior riders to offer their support Sean McCourt, Andy Ross and Karl Love just recently home from a year working away in Australia.
The boys all rode a great race on such a tough route with the gruelling finish today up the Spelga Dam. Junior rider Darragh finished 11th on the stage only 37 seconds down on the stage winner while Travis finished 18th just over one minute behind. Their overall positions were similar Darragh 11th and travis 17th great ride for junior riders. The other members of the team finished in respective placings mid pack after a tough 3 stages of fast racing.
Other club members where also in action this weekend racing off road at the final round of the Irish NPS in Castlepollard, again plenty of podiums from U8 right up seniors with young Fiadh Craig kicking off proceedings with a top spot on the podium
Next up was young Jake McKee 2nd in U10 , Aoife with top spot in U12 race and Cara Suckling with a first girl also in U14 race, U14 male rider James Armstrong had another great race but was just off the podium in U14 boys race and lastly Davy McKee was on podium in senior race in 3rd spot on podium not sure if Craigy or Stuart was racing at this stage we are only working of social media posts.
VC Glendale had another rider on race duty this weekend Aoibhinn Sharkey away guesting for TC Racing in Belgium again very limited information on her progress but hopefully we will hear a lot more about the girls trip away for a month in Belgium.
Finally the club would like to thank all the members of the club that gave up their time over the weekend to help the guys out at the 3 day, a lot of focus is on the academy but when asked the club came out and supported all the guys racing over the weekend and it was great to see. Hopefully this inspires a lot of the racers who haven't pinned their numbers on yet to finally take the big step and start racing in the second part of the season and for other club members to try it of get more involved with the racing at the weekends.
