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By Sean Moriarty

A new downhill mountain bike track in Glenflesk has the potential to be the best in Europe - and could attract some of the biggest competitions in the world.

Shronaboy Farm hosted the Munster Downhill Championships last Sunday.

And although it has hosted several non-timed events in the past it was the first time that the venue hosted an event sanctioned by Cycling Ireland.

The track, which needs additional funding to bring it in to line with similar championship quality courses in Europe, is about half completed.

Sunday’s event attracted just over 80 entries, but site operators believe that this could double if they could complete the track works and add in shower facilities and car parking.

“Our plan would be to attract the big European competitions,” site owner Con O’Donoghue said. “But it is all down to funding. Sunday’s event was our big advert and judging by the comments I heard after, we have a good thing. Last Sunday was fierce successful and we have another major event in September.”

The current track was developed with the help of local downhill mountain biking enthusiasts but O’Donoghue says he needs to double the amount of development at the venue to bring it up to Cycling Ireland and UCI (world governing body) standards.

Local mountain biking competitor Rob Duggan has spent the last week as a spectator at the world mountain biking championships in Les Gets in France.

He says the local track has huge potential but it will take an incredible amount of work to bring it up to Les Gets’ standards.

“In time to come it will be very good,” he told the Killarney Advertiser. “It could progress to be something huge. Les Gets is a ski resort in the winter and they use it for the bikes in the summer, so they have proper lifts to get the bikes to the top.”

Shronaboy currently uses jeeps and trailers to bring competitors to start line at the top.