Teenager riding high after serious accident
MOTOCROSS ACE SET FOR CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORY
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Wednesday September 08 2010
A LUSK teen, who has overcome a serious back injury following a motorbike accident, is set to win the Youth Southern Motocross Championship this weekend in Cork. Shane Mulligan of Jordanstown was just 13 when he fell from his motorbike, fracturing three vertebrae in his back. And despite being in a body cast for over a month while his back injuries healed, this did not stop him from continuing with his love for the off-road circuit sport.
This year alone Shane ( 16) has won the Adult Southern Motocross Championship and is leading the Under 21 Expert Championship, the final of which will take place in two weeks in Wexford.
' All Shane has to do to win the Youth Southern Motocross championship at the weekend is ride in it and finish it as he can't be beaten,' said his proud dad Eamonn. Last weekend Shane came in third place in the Irish Youth championship and is currently ninth in the Irish MX2 championship. ' He is even more focussed and more determined than before,' said his mum Catherine.
Shane began riding a motorbike when he was eight years-of-age after he received one as a Christmas present.
Shane's father Eamonn had sponsored the late Martin Finnegan in his racing career and they became firm family friends. ' When Shane got the bike, himself and Martin were out in the field on it on Christmas morning. Shane was only eight then,' recalled Catherine.
' It was then that he got the buzz for motocross racing. Even when he had the bad accident and fractured three vertebrae he couldn't wait to get back onto the motorbike.'
Catherine said it was the following March, four months after he had the accident, that he was allowed to ride his motorbike again.
' There was no way this injury was going to stop him. He was lucky as the specialists said his injuries were consistent with a child falling out of a tree and he has made a full and complete recovery,' she added. Shane, who is sponsored by Country Crest, Tony Carton, Green Clean and Johnny Mulligan, is now in his sixth year at Skerries Community College.
- Nicola DONNELLY
