Cycling through pain for Spain

The Irish team faces an uphill journey, but the intrepid Pedal to Poland cyclists face a flat one as they power towards their final destination and that date with Spain.

The Pedal to Poland team, who have been cycling to Poland from Dublin in a bid to raise €50,000 for three charities, yesterday hauled themselves across some 130km of the northern Polish coast, having finally crossed the border from Germany.

They had left the small German town of Anklam, where they had pitched up for the Croatia match, their mood not helped by a big crash en route which, in the words of team member Conn McCluskey, saw “bikes and bodies strewn across the ground”.