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Kings of the saddle: charity pedal pushers hopeful of topping €100k
THE Tour de Munster is hoping this year's tenth anniversary event last week will break the event's previous fundraising records.
Chairman of the four-day charity event, 56-year-old Gerry Murray, Patrickswell, said the tour hopes to raise over €100,000.
And Gerry certainly broke the record as the oldest man in the peleton that sped up the notoriously steep St Patrick's Hill in Cork at its conclusion.
"It is an unreal hill. You have to have the proper gears which I didn't have so I just horsed my way up it, but got up anyway. You need very low gears which I didn't have but I'll have them for next year," said Gerry, who came up with the idea of tackling the torturous climb after a 100 mile cycle.
"Myself and Paul Sheridan had this great idea that it would be a nice idea to finish up on St Patrick's Hill but we must have thought of that over a pint I think," laughed Gerry.
There are strong Limerick connections to the charity cycle as Paul Sheridan, Old Cork Road, is its PRO and Tom Lynch, Bruff, is a stalwart of the tour and has raised well in excess of €10,000.
Indeed, when it was started in 2000, 50 per cent of the participants were from Analog Devices. This year 10 from the company were in the saddle.
Overall 120 riders took part and all the money will be going to Down Syndrome Ireland.
"Because it's the Munster tour all the money will stay in the Munster counties.
"There was a phenomenal sum collected in Limerick – over j10,000. We're hoping to make this our biggest ever, last year it was about j80,000 due to the recession.
"For a four-day event normally we would only have sixty people out but this year we had 120. Down Syndrome Ireland do fantastic work and we had loads of extra people because somebody has a connection with the charity," said Gerry, whose son Conor is continuing the sporting tradition as he is in the Munster Academy.
The great Sean Kelly travelled with the riders into Limerick from Ennis before heading onto Tralee. He also showed age hasn't slowed him down by completing the infamous hill twice.
As for next year Gerry says it's "on the cards" that St Patrick's will be surmounted again but he'll get his gears sorted out first!
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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