Leah Maunsell on international duty this year; she is aiming long term for the cross country mountain bike race in the Olympic Games in 2020 (Photo: Adrian van der Lee)
By Brian Canty
Cork siblings – known as Team Maunsell - are making their mark on the cross-country mountain biking scene and the duo are hoping to continue moving up the ranks in both national and international competitions.
Jonathan (20) and younger sister Leah Maunsell (14), from Castletownroche in north Cork, have been competing in the sport for a number of years now but only recently have they taken it seriously.
Their father Cieran taught both to cycle at a very young age and said they were riding as soon as they could stand.
Leah has her sights set on the 2020 Olympics where she hopes to compete in cross country mountain biking. Jonathan, who bought his first bike from SuperValu coupons, has also some lofty ambitions of his own.
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"I had done a bit of cross country cycling and I did a few downhill races when I was 17, but I never placed and it was just for the craic,” he explains.
"Then a few of us started getting together and we formed Team Ballyhoura Mountain Biking Club outside Charleville. It started out with about eight of us and now there are more than 50 members.”
In 2011 Jonathan was working in a surf school to buy himself a bike and because of the hours he was putting in he couldn't ride much. So when he took to the trails with his new mount he decided to put more of himself into the sport.
While he had a pretty blasé attitude to cycling in his younger years, the family could all see that Leah had a natural flair for it from the time she got her first racing bike for her 11th birthday, but was too young to compete.
"It seemed to come really natural to her - we all have to learn, but it just happened for Leah," Cieran said.
She took her first win in an U12 event and quickly began racing against very experienced women who were often more than twice her age.
Last year Leah’s highlight was being selected for the European MTB Youth Championships in August, when she got to race in the Alps.
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For Jonathan, the peak of his year was winning the final senior Irish downhill event, despite entering “just for fun”.
"I thought the season was over at the end of September and there were two rounds left in the Irish Downhill Series, so I said I'd go along for the craic, like an end of season wind down.
“I had no expectations and I wasn't taking the weekend seriously from a competition point of view.”
He said there was much more to the sport for him than simply racing, despite making the podium in every Gravity Enduro race he rode here in 2012 and last year.
"It's an exploration, usually me and the dog out on the mountain,” he said of his love for the bike.
Trying to train for the Alps was a huge challenge for Leah, as the Maunsell family scrambled around Ireland looking for the steepest climbs they could find.
"When we got there, anything we'd done was baby stuff compared to what was over there and the skills people had were amazing," Leah said, adding the heat was also something she was not used to.
Her best result was 12th and overall she finished 21st. She is hopefully the average of 20 female riders in a 350-rider field for a Gravity Enduro event at home will increase and raise standards at the same time.
Looking ahead to this year, Jonathan hopes to do the full Irish Gravity Enduro series and place in the top three again while also riding more international races. His overall aim is to make a career out of what he loves.
"I just want to do anything to do with mountain biking. I will do this for the rest of my life if I can.”
Meanwhile, Leah hopes to return to the European championships in the U17 category and use the domestic scene to work towards her ultimate goal of reaching the 2020 Olympics.
Jonathan Maunsell is perhaps more relaxed about racing than his kid sister but has stepped it up in recent years and is looking to race internationally now.
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