This article is from page 64 of the 2011-05-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 64 JPG
THE Crotty Cup is back and here to stay – that’s the new mission statement of the West Clare Cycling Club that’s reviving the oldest cycling race in Clare to coincide with the An Post Rás coming to Kilrush.
Club PRO Paul Edson told The Clare People this week that the Rás’ return to Kilrush after an interval of 13 years has been the spark to ensure the restoration of the Crotty Cup to Clare’s sporting calendar.
“The Rás coming back to Kilrush was our chance,” said Edson.
“It was appropriate, given that a whole weekend of activities are being organised around the Rás that it would be a perfect opportunity to get the Crotty Cup going again, getting that great tradition going again.
“It ran consistently from 1934 to 2007, but hasn’t been in the last three years.
“There were problems and it got a bit messy with the Munster Cycling Federation, who put on an event in competition with the Crotty Cup down in Tipperary. It took away cyclists and effectively ended the Crotty Cup,” he added.
Now, the race’s return to the cycling circuit represents another turn in its chequered history, attracting Olympians like Bertie Donnelly who represented Ireland in the Amsterdam games of 1928 through to David O’Loughlin who competed in the Beijing games in 2008.
“The Crotty Cup has been lost and found,” the programme notes for the 60th staging of the race in 1994 famously remarked. “It has travelled to England and America and has had to be tracked down to enable its return to Kilrush.
“The last time it vanished, club member Kevin O’Gorman discovered its location and secured its return,” the notes added.
“It was started by Michael Crotty, Elizabeth Crotty’s husband, who was a renowned cyclist and athlete in this day. He started the West Clare Cycling Club in the early 1930s and presented the Crotty Cup in 1934, a race that went from Kilrush to Kilkee and back.
“The club has been running ever since. It had a bit of a dip in the early ‘60s, but it kept going.
Now, its latest return sees a change of format that West Clare Cycling Club members feel will secure its future. “Because of the problems we had the last time,” said Paul Edson, “we decided to on a new format for the race, running it as a time-trial because of the fact that there’s such a great interest in time-trialling now.
“We think it will open up the race. It’s an excellent route, a 20k route that’s challenging, from the Kilrush out the Kildysart Road.
“We’re hoping for a good entry. From west Clare alone we should get 30 to 40 entries, while we are leaving the entry open to people who want to register on the day,” he added.