The Green Isle of the Great Deep

At the start of a five hour ride, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Magnus's training schedule calls for long rides at the weekends, here he is at the start of a five hour ride around Easter Ross, just before Christmas. As a parent you always worry about him being out on the road, even the quiet roads around the Black Isle.

Well the perils of road cycling just took on a nightmarish quality.

Last night we heard the tragic news that Fort Wlliam based Jason Macintyre - one of Scotlands top cyclists - had been killed when training near his home. Its headline news on the radio this morning, and we just received this e-mail from Gary Willis - Magnus's coach.

"Jason MacIntyre, one of our Affiliate athletes was killed yesterday on a training ride near his home in Ft William.

Jason was an amazingly talented athlete and lived 100% for his racing and his family. I raced with him for around 5 years, we started racing together in first year as senior and taught me a lot about being a bike rider, a lot of that info I am still passing on to you guys.

Jason was supposed to come down and ride with the junior guys at the innerleithen camp a few weeks ago, unfortunately his bike broke over the new year. He was disappointed he couldn’t make it as he was really keen to meet all you younger riders coming through and help, as he put it, "if he could"

He was training for the Olympics in Beijing, something he had kept close to his chest. He was just a lad from the highlands that found he could compete with David Miller, Bradley Wiggens et al. That was such a motivation for him to compete on the world stage, an opportunity he never had a young athlete.

Most of you probably never met Jason, but as part of our programme he will be dearly missed, he was a leading light on what can be achieved if you put your mind to it. I hope we can all strive to go that extra mile to challenge the best in the world, I'm sure he would have liked that!

Thanks

Gary


Gary Willis
National Olympic Talent Coach
Scotland "

So all of you who read this blog, please remember that a cyclist could be just around that next bend, and drive carefully.

Please.

Posted by Flickr Scotland on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 8:08 AM | Permalink