By Brian Canty
One result that might have slipped under the radar as the racing season wound to a close last weekend was the yellow jersey secured by Barry Meade as winner of the A4 race in the Charleville Park Hotel Two-Day.
Meade, riding for the O’Leary’s Stone Kanturk team, won Saturday’s opening stage with a thrilling burst of speed ahead of the 18 others who managed to make it into that front group. And though he lost the yellow jersey following the time-trial on Sunday morning, he did enough to re-capture it on Sunday’s final afternoon stage. But only just.
Going into the final stage, C4S Hibernia rider Paul O’Connell looked to have matters sewn up after a blistering time-trial saw him in the race leader’s yellow jersey going into the final stage.
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He was strong throughout but with Meade only a few seconds behind – having notched third on the morning’s test against the clock - O’Connell knew he had to be vigilant to any late attacks.
As the bunch approached the finish line, Meade moved to the front and managed to get away with Killarney’s Brendan Cassidy. Together they worked well and put valuable time into the bunch containing O’Connell – enough for Meade to win and see Cassidy jump up to fourth overall, with a shattered O’Connell having to be content with second.
For Meade, though, it was a victory for intelligent riding and a scratch beneath the surface of his cycling career reveals quite an interesting story.
Meade, a close friend of Paidi O’Brien, is a former National Champion at U16 level. He was one of the most feared riders in the underage scene at the time and he emerged along with a host of other talented cyclists from the Kanturk club in the late 90’s and early noughties.
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Among them were Paidi O’Brien, Willie Curtin, the Lynch’s Denis and Daniel as well as the Dennehys; Michael and Simon.
At the time, the Kanturk club produced five of the 10 riders that made up the Irish team for the World Championships.
Meade was prominent in the Junior Tour of 2000 as well, until he took a wrong turn, went 20 miles off course in a stage with three days of racing left and the following day he didn’t start.
Little wonder that when he was late to collect his winners’ jersey last Sunday afternoon in the Charleville Park Hotel, the joke went around that he took a wrong turn –just as he did 12 years previous.
In the same year he was crowned U16 National Champion he was selected to represent Ireland at the Youth Olympics and throughout the early part of the decade he was conspicuous by his presence at the head of races as well as at the prize-giving afterwards.
In recent years he has taken to motorsport and rallying with some success in the Cork 20 and Lakes of Killarney rally but after last Sunday’s win he revealed that he’s back on the bike, with ambitions to moving back up the categories.
You have been warned.
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