Mullen strikes gold at youth All-Ireland

Navan cyclist Ryan Mullen underlined his potential once again when he won three categories in the u-16 age group at the All-Ireland Youth Championships at Coalisland, Co Tyrone. Mullen lives in north Wales and regularly travels across the Irish Sea with his father Kevin, who, in his younger days, raced with Navan Road Club. Ryan's grandparents hail from outside Duleek. Cyclists took part in a variety of categories from u-11 to u-16 at the Ulster venue. There were three disciplines in each category - a time-trial, a criterium or short circuit town race and a road race. Mullen proved supreme at u-16 level in the time-trial and when the action switched to the Coalisland town centre in the afternoon for the Criterium Championship he powered to victory to claim his second gold medal of the day. In Sunday's road race, Mullen had yet another convincing win and he also received a special trophy for the most acomplished rider in the championships. The three young Stamullen riders, Danny Bruton, Ciaran O'Connell and Paul Dargle finished second in the team event behind Covey Wheelers of Mayo. Other young cyclists from the north east who raced extremely well without getting into the medals included James Lynch, Siobhan Murtagh, Megan Lynch and Aidan Wall from the Navan Avonmore Road Club. Dunboyne native Mark Cassidy will battle it out with his An Post colleagues over the coming week for a place on the team for the Tour of Britain from Saturday 11th September. Cassidy, who won the seventh stage at this year's Rás, will seek to cement his place in the side over the coming week as the An Post combination is due to take part in a number of races in Belgium in the lead up to the Tour of Britain. Cassidy has a tough task on his hands as along with the strong Belgian contingent within the team, he also has fellow Irishmen Conor McConvey, David O'Loughlin, Ronan McLaughlin, Philip Lavery, Stephen Halpin and Irish National Champion Matt Brammeier to contend with.