The Continental National Adventure Race series heads to Dingle. After the epic event at WAAR in Donegal a few weeks ago we move to the other end of the country, south to the kingdom of Kerry and then to west Kerry for the Dingle Adventure Race.

Expert

In the women’s expert category Ellen Vitting will be hoping for her third win in a row, two really strong performances have put her in a commanding position and she will be confident of stretching it to 3 out of 3. The only woman who could spoil the party and take top spot from her is Laura ODriscoll, who may still be recovering from an epic race at The Beast AR in Antrim last week…the long run section will give Laura a favourable advantage but we will have to wait and see if she will have recovered enough to challenge. The OMahony sisters Louise and Joan have done well here before and with plenty of racing this year already they could do well here again. Last year’s sport champion Regina Sheehan is back in the expert race this year and if she tags a decent run on to what should be a strong bike stage then she should be in like for the 3 podium spot. Rosy Temple and Yvonne Walsh are serious top 5 contenders

The men’s expert race looks to have a quite balanced field… Luke McMullan is probably our pick to win here, he has been in super form and should have enough to win. Shane Scully, Seb Giroud, David Power and Michael Buckley will be no pushovers and will push all the way, the late kayak stage could be a critical point. Killian Heery makes a return to racing, well familiar with this course he’ll not be making the trip for nothing and could well hit the ground running here and shouldn’t be ruled out as a serious contender. Barry Cronin, Eric Wolfe, Gary Scully, Liam Aherne and Mark Pinfield will all be chasing top 5 spots and you couldn’t rule out Paul Mahon and Matt Casey making a good impression..
Barry Cronin could be the bookies choice to nick a podium spot and Rory McMullan could be a wild card to claim a top 5

Sport

There will be the usual fast and furious pace in the men’s Sport category…Smiths and Smyth are likely to be the main contenders, a happy hunting ground for Bernard and he’ll not want to give up the title he took last year here too easily! Kieran Cosgrove looks to be in great shape and will fancy his chances while Gary Lawlor will be thinking about bringing a second Kerry title across the border to cork this year.

Other contenders include Des Kennedy who will no doubt push a serious pace on Mt Eagle, John Phelan and Anthony McGibney might make their way to top spots. Our outsider is Declan Donnellan to hit the top 5…and we are going to go for Niall to win, Philip second and battle between Kieran/Bernard/Des for 3rd

In the women’s sport race Niamh Garvey appears to be the strongest in the field at the moment, a fine result at WAAR has her top of the leaderboard after 3 races and she should extend her lead here. Niamh Cleary will likely clinch second place and the 3rd and last podium should be completed by one of Catherine Hallihan, Shauna Griffin or Martina Dunne. Lorraine Horan who also had a good run at The Beast AR last weekend (a member of The Crafty Divils AR team who had a fine result) may tog our to defend her title, if she has recovered and gets to the start line then she could upset the odds and once again take the crown home