Ryan Mullen won the elite road title in great style in Mullingar two years ago. But the search for a club willing to promote the championships this year is intensifying as time is running out (Photo: Toby Watson)
Cycling Ireland has widened the search to find clubs willing to take on the challenge of promoting the National Road Championships on the last weekend in June.
When Clonmel CC was forced to step away from its commitment to host the championships Cycling Ireland offered it out to other clubs in Munster.
But it appears that search has come up short and the federation has now opened the process up to any club in Ireland to take on the event.
With the creation of the Masters categories, the event has become an even bigger logistical effort.
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Not only must the elite women’s and three Masters’ categories road races be run on Saturday and the elite and U23 men’s race be run on Sunday, but all of the time trials must also be held on the Thursday night.
It must be said that all of the clubs that have promoted the event in recent years have done a fantastic job, with Cycling Ireland now imposing a deadline of February 24th for other clubs to step forward and volunteer to run the races this year.
The federation has issued a statement on the issue, saying: “Cycling Ireland wishes to notify you that any club who have an interest in running the 2016 Elite National Road & Time Trial Championships are invited to contact Cycling Ireland no later than February 24th.
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“The Championships were due to held in Clonmel from 23-26th June this year, but will now not go ahead at this location.
“Any initial queries on this matter can be made to (Cycling Ireland) events officer, Garry Nugent.”
He told stickybottle last month that because the nationals were awarded on a rotational basis, clubs from Munster were getting priority this year but that the process would be opened if no clubs from Munster came forward.
“All I can tell you is Clonmel CC had local funding issues, other than that I don’t know,” said Nugent.
“We’ve put it out to all the Munster clubs to see if anyone is interested in running the event and we’ve given them until the 10th of February to come back to us.”
Nugent said while he was disappointed that Clonmel CC couldn’t host the event, it had put on a superb championships four years ago.
“Running bike races is an expensive business,” he said. “It’s the national championships so we will find a club willing to take the event on.
“It’s just unfortunate what’s happened to Clonmel but running races is very difficult and things can change very, very quickly on you.”
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