Tommy McCague CU Chairman and Emyvale CC’s stalwart

The new restrictions did not prevent us from holding the event. It was two things, 1) the uncertainty of what move Stormont will make tomorrow and 2) the main reason is the understandable nervousness of the local community in the face of rising COVID numbers, including some cases in the locality in recent days

It is with regret that the committee of Emyvale CC has made the difficult decision to announce the postponement of the Ulster 25 mile ITT which was scheduled to proceed this Sunday morning in Glaslough. In light of yesterday’s newly reinforced Government and medical advice, we engaged with Cycling Ireland for further guidance. After discussions yesterday and this morning, Cycling Ireland’s position is that we are free to proceed subject to strict adherence to social distancing and hygiene regulations. However, there is uncertainty in the North as Stormont has announced that it will be considering further covid19 measures in the Thursday meeting of the Executive. As yet, we have no idea what those measures will be, or how they would affect our ability to host the TT, as half of our course is in the North. Furthermore, there have unfortunately been a number of recent new COVID cases diagnosed in the local community around Glaslough and with everyone trying their best to observe the stricter regulations, the committee feels that morally it would send out the wrong message to bring up to one hundred individuals from all over the country into the locality. On the brighter side, we have all of the work done for hosting the TT and should be in a good position to reinstate it should circumstances allow in approximately four weeks. Entrants are of course eligible for a full refund through Eventmaster should they choose that option. Nonetheless, lots of hard work has been completed to date by many groups of people to bring the event to the point of being ready to go. The committee and Emyvale CC would like to thank the entrants, the local community, the commissair’s, Cycling Ireland and Cycling Ulster, the volunteer marshals, the MC and guests, Monaghan CoCo and An Garda and the PSNI who were to be available to help with traffic on the day. Please be assured that the health and safety of everyone involved are paramount in our minds in making this decision.

A hard decision, but safety first told Marc Andrews (PRO) from the Monaghan Club, hopefully, we can run it in September hopefully if things turn for the better