BY RYAN FERRY
JOE Barr was in reflective mood last week as he was honoured for his achievements in 1985, but more than forty years later, the Newtowncunningham man is still going strong and setting challenges for himself.
Barr was the winner of the cycling award at the 1985 Sports Star Awards.
He was recognised after winning the prestigious Le Coq Sportif Classic League and represented Ireland in road-racing three times during 1985 and in the same year competed six times for Northern Ireland.
He was also selected for the Northern Ireland team for the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh the following year when he won a bronze medal.
It’s ultra-racing that garners his attention now and success has been plentiful.
He finished the Race Across America twice, winning his age category once, and winning the Race Around Ireland twice. He was also the 2023 World Ultra Cycling Champion and a multiple world and Guinness world record holder.
As fate would have it, Barr was sat beside Rory Kennedy at the Sports Star Awards launch. The Letterkenny navigator was also a winner forty years ago and remains hungry for success in rallying.
Barr is still fit and healthy and he hailed the Sports Star awards for the role they have played in Donegal down through the years.
“It was so important for me back then because the opportunities were so sparse to get the recognition. It was county level but it was very, very important.
“It was early days of it (Sports Star Awards) but it still made a difference and I think anyone who won in ‘85 would say it impacted them in some shape or form effectively. I have huge respect for it.”
Barr, pictured right, has just returned from Valencia where he continued to train hard and ask questions of his body.
He will turn 67 in June but cycling is his life. His sport has been good to him and he enjoys it as much as ever.
“I’d like to think I’m in good shape. I mean I’m training really, really hard physically.
“You know Rory’s always been a winner and always will be a winner – you can’t create that. It’s a gift.
“I think we look back on that era now and it’s hard to believe how many really successful sports people have come out of this small county, it’s amazing considering its geographical location to everything.
“You know you had to travel before you could even get started and certainly in my game that’s the way it was and I can’t see it being any different in any other sport.
“You had to be prepared to put your stuff in a suitcase and move, that’s just it. To be honest with you my life is still no different, you sort of live out of a suitcase week to week that’s the way it is.
“The opportunity in your career to do the one thing you love in life, all of your life, is very rare and that’s been the greatest opportunity for me.
“I’ve been blessed with good health and strong health and I’ve been blessed with a lot of support in different places along the way and it’s all slowly but surely evolved into what it is now.
“When you start looking back over the last few years at all the successes that has built to what it is now, and it’s not until somebody goes ‘well what exactly are the big ones?’ that you start calling them off, and you start to realise even if I wasn’t that person, that’s pretty impressive.
“When you’re trying to make your way your heads in a hole so you don’t actually see everything that’s behind, you’re just looking at the next to keep going and building and building and building.
“My career hasn’t really been too different to that and it’s still like that because you know we are still looking at it year on year to try and move forward from where we are.”
Barr says the world is very different now compared with when he was starting out and sports people have many burdens to contend with.
“You’ve got sponsorship, there’s pressure there.
“And you have pressure to perform so I think that’s one of the big things in young athletes that I try and help.
“We’ve got our own scholarship and we’ve got quite a lot of young people in that we mentor and one of the things we teach is to deal with today’s world of pressure which is a lot greater than what I went through at the beginning but you know it’s still there.
“Those pressures lead to a much shorter career in today’s world -there’s just so much to deal with, media and everything else. Social media as well is one of the biggest pressures for young people. Again it’s one of those evils we require in sport to make it all work.”
Barr enjoyed the holiday period with wife Jill and sons Ross and Reuben.
He will head back to Spain this week for a fortnight and then travel to North Carolina for a week’s training at altitude.
After that, it’s down to Florida for the first race of the year on February 20 and there is a busy and exciting schedule ahead.
“The Florida 500 is 535 miles so 800 kilometres from Jacksonville in the north right down to Key West in the bottom. It’s a very beautiful race which goes right through Miami and Palm Beach and Daytona Beach.
“It’s very fast and very warm and that’s really the beginning and a stepping stone into different time zones and different heat.
“The big one for this year is the centenary of Route 66. It’s a hundred years old in America and we are actually on a Guinness World Record on the whole course over four thousand kilometres.
“It starts in Santa Monica on June 2 and we’re trying to do it in eight days so that’s the biggest race for us.
“Then I’m coming back here to Ireland in August and I will have another go at the Wild Atlantic Way from Kinsale all the way back up to the north to see if I can get that into five days.
“That would be two of the most visited routes in the world currently in one year so we’re looking to do that if we can and then I’ve got a couple of smaller races I’ve got to dot in for sponsors and that but those two are the big goals for the year.”
Barr is realistic about where he is in his career.
This is his 55th season and there has been a heavy workload on his body but it’s standing the test of time at present.
“My body’s still working good but it doesn’t come without its challenges.
“There’s a few little places it goes under pressure now for sure especially on the really long, long climbs where you’re on them for twenty kilometres or more.
“That shows its head at the end of the day I’m going to be 67. It’s not like I’m 27 so I have to respect that but thankfully I don’t have any issues and I do a lot of medical checks every year and everything seems to be going fine so far.
“So as long as I can keep doing it I’m going to keep doing it but there’s no doubt or question I’m coming near the end so it’s year by year.”
