Sad day for Cycling Ireland

Yesterday was a very sad day for UCD cycling club as "The Skipper" Niall Dwyer broke his collarbone in a nasty bunch sprint accident. The race had gone well for him and he was riding up the front throughout. Having previously tried to get away in the final km's of early season races he decided to contest the bunch sprint and was very well placed in the top 10 to go on and get a much deserved prize.As can be seen in the pictures (see below) a dangerous move by a rider on Nialls left shoulder brought the whole of the front of the bunch down leaving Niall with nowhere to go but into the ditch...HARD.
Luckily for him there was medical treatment available and as a club we are very lucky to have Fiachra Rowan surgeon extraordinaire who operated on Niall at the scene using a tire leaver and old tube and some recovery drink. Niall is going to miss this weeks Tuesday night club but the rest will do him good and they have decided to put back Gorey and Easter holidays for 8 weeks until he is riding again.
In the A2 race it was the first outing for the experienced Gus Ryan "the professor" who as expected sat in the bunch comfortably and even attacked near the end of the race. The race was a strange affair with many many attacks but with an equal number of willing chasers. After 4 laps of 6 it was clear this was going to end in a bunch sprint. Anto had some gear issues again so led out the group which had Ciaran and Fiachra in strong positions. In the end a 3 man group stayed away and in the bunch sprint Ciaran was only inches outside the prizes beaten into 9th place.
Any result would have been clearly overshadowed by the sad demise of our esteemed colleague Niall.

Here are some photos of the event taken by the incredible photographer that is Ben Arent
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benarent/sets/72157623544964667/
and here...
http://www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/