Tourism chiefs defend Giro promo

Tourism Ireland chiefs have hit back at Sean Kelly’s critical comments surrounding the promotion of the Giro d’Italia which starts in Belfast on May 9th.

Kelly, who spent four years as the world’s number one cyclist throughout an illustrious career told this newspaper last month that: “we’ve heard almost nothing about the Giro coming.

“There’s so little about it. It’s going to be a long time before we get to host a big stage race again in Ireland. I think it’s a scandal that Tourism Ireland are not doing something.”

But yesterday, speaking in Dublin at an event to highlight a packed promotional programme of events leading up the race, Tourism Ireland PR manager Sinead Grace challenged Kelly’s viewpoints.

“Ourselves, the Northern Ireland tourist board and Fáilte Ireland are the ones responsible for the product development of the Giro here in Ireland. Our remit, in Tourism Ireland, is to work overseas to get Australians and Americans and whoever else to come and we have a busy programme of promotions underway. We’ve had a programme in the overseas market place since it the Giro was confirmed, so to say we’re doing nothing is wrong.

“Initially our priority was to build awareness among cyclists that the Giro was happening here. Then phase two of the campaign was to promote cycling activity holidays to people who aren’t necessarily mad cyclists but would be interested in coming here to enjoy our landscape and the history of Ireland. And there’ll also be another phase after the Giro is gone, to promote Ireland. It’s very important that we maximise the exposure of this.

Meanwhile, the Lakeside Wheelers Mullingar cycling club were celebrating yesterday after they secured a major sponsorship package from Grange Motors, Toyota dealers in the town, to run this year’s National Cycling Championships (June 26-29).

The Championships are run the week before the sport’s showpiece event, the Tour de France and yesterday, Grange Motors came up with a “substantial” figure to help run the sport’s biggest weekend of racing in Ireland.

Chairman of the committee tasked with organising this year’s championships, Shay O’Toole, described the news as ‘absolutely brilliant.’

“We have a history and a tradition with Grange Motors in Mullingar going back years, they’ve always given us huge support for all our cycling events and once again they’ve come up trumps,” he said.

“Times are hard but this is a huge event. I’m delighted that someone local has taken it on too. People were telling me that the Championships are too big for locals and should be gone national to Tesco or someone but Grange Motors in Mullingar have a huge, huge connection with us and I’m just delighted that they’ve taken it. They’ll give us the cars, the merchandise, the fuel, and they’ll give us cash to make it the best championships ever.”