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By Tommy Campbell, Irish Independent/Evening Herald/Sunday Independent
"The Maestro," Sean Kelly, was back to winning ways yesterday when he won an uphill sprint in Mothel close to Carrick in Co. Tipperary. The race was the annual Hamper Cycling Event, which has been part of the festivities leading up to Christmas for close on 30 years. This was Sean's 10th win in the event which has attracted cyclists from near and far over the years.
In latter years, the handicapper has been graceful to the former No.1 cyclist in the world. On this occasion his group had an advantage of five minutes on the scratch group but were ten minutes of a disadvantage on the limit group.
It was evident from the outset over the six laps of a five mile course, which was fairly flat and caused no discomfort to the 70 competitors who participated. Sean's group were quickly into there stride and kept eating away on the leaders with the scratch group which included Ciaran Power making heavy work in there attempt to bring all the groups together prior to the penultimate lap.
In the end they were adrift by two minutes with the Kelly train eventually closing in on the leaders and in the uphill sprint the familiar figure renowned for his sprints was the one who was adjudged the winner from Mike Gannon from Omagh with Philip Cassidy of the Cycleways team in third place. The first lady home was Kathleen O'Hara with local Willie Ormond getting arousing reception at the finish.
1 Sean Kelly (Carrick Wheelers Road Club) 1.28.10 2 Mike Gannon (Omagh) 3 Philip Cassidy (Cycleways) 4 M. Griffin (Fermoy CC) 5 G. Rea (Cork CC) 6 S. Owens (Carrick) First Lady: Kathleen O'Hara (Carlow)