CYCLING: Robin Seymour will aim to extend an incredible sequence tomorrow in the national mountainbike cross country championships in Tollymore Forest Park, near Newcastle, Co Down.
The Wicklow rider has taken the past 13 titles and is clear favourite again. Last Sunday he competed in the European MTB championships and finished a solid 35th.
Niall Davis is likely to be his closest challenger. He was 17th in the under-23 contest, while Conor McConvey was 29th.
Last year, Tarja Owens took her 12th women's title. However, her chances of adding another are uncertain due to variable form. Whether she starts or not, Beth McCluskey will be racing hard to claim her first gold.
Meanwhile, Ben Reid retained his Irish DH crown in Rostrevor Forest last Sunday. After suffering a puncture during his second run, he finished third in the elite race behind brothers Gee and Dan Atherton. As the two are from Britain, the crown stays with Reid. Glyn O'Brien and Dan Wolfe took silver and bronze.
In other news, Irish juniors Sean Downey, Thomas Martin, Jeff O'Hanrahan and William Connolly finished 11th in the team pursuit at the European track championships in Cottbus, Germany.
The under-23 squad of Maurice O'Brien, Michael Murray, Martyn Irvine and Adam Armstrong were 13th. Peter Wilson was 16th in the junior 24km points race final, and Louise Moriarty was prominent in the women's events.
Finally, Irish rider Philip Deignan has a strong programme laid out for the rest of the season and hopes to ride strongly following a frustrating year of injury thus far. But he is due to return in the Polynormande event in France on August 5th.
"It's all been pretty frustrating," he said this week. "However, I have got a few weeks training in at this stage and things seem good, so hopefully I will be okay until the end of the season."
Once back racing, Deignan is scheduled to ride some big events. The Tour of Germany, the Tour of Ireland, the Tour of Spain, the world championships and the Tour of Lombardy are all likely targets at this stage.
