Abandoned Road Races – Athea

“You really need a very good map of Ireland to find the village of Athea”, wrote Cycle World Magazine back in 2004. 

Michael and William Dunlop, Athea (ph: Aidan Lynam)

Athea, though, boasted a great popularity for a decade, thanks to the road races organized on the 3.3 miles track in the village in co. Limerick.

From 2002, in fact, Athea was one of the Irish Road Racing Championship meetings, managed so well that it attracted about 10.000 spectators every year: a real show between the narrow streets.

Thanks to sponsors, lotteries, concerts and raffles, Athea gained a budget up to 70.000€ to run the event.

It became famous for the kindness of its inhabitants (3.000 people supporting together the event) as well as for the great battles between Martin Finnegan, Victor Gilmore, Darren Lindsay, Raymond Porter, John Donnan, Guy Martin, Keith Amor, Ryan Farquhar and more recently John Burrows and the Dunlop brothers (William won his first ever road race at Athea on a 125cc).

A flourishing event from 2002 to 2009, never hit by serious injuries, Athea unfortunately came to a halt in 2010 for financial problems. It was back in the calendar in 2011, when Michael and William Dunlop dominated the event, but in 2012 the situation turned bad again due to lack of sponsors and the meeting was cancelled.

Despite the Club stated a couple of years ago that “Athea is not dead yet”,  the narrow streets of the Athea village never hosted a road race again from 2011 on.