Bellaghy man Dermot O'Kane is one of 18 cyclists taking on the 21 stages of the Tour de France to raise funds for a very worthy cause.
Dermot is the sole representative from Northern Ireland in the The Tour 21 class of 2023 having been selected from a pool of 400 applicants.
After months and months of training and fundraising, they set off from Bilbao last Saturday, 24th June on their way to tackle all 21 stages of the Tour de France route, just one week ahead of the professionals.
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The team is made up of 18 amateur cyclists from across the world and will work as team as they make their way across Spain and France across three and a half weeks - all to raise over £1,000,000 for Cure Leukaemia, the official charity partner of the Tour de France in the UK.
Dermot has a very personal reason for signing up to the challenge following the loss of his very good friend, Damian Brown, to a brain tumour in 2021.
"He would have been the person who introduced me to cycling and got me on to a bike originally," explained Dermot before heading off.
"I suppose whenever we would have been out cycling we often would have talked about making the trip over to France and tackling a few of the famous Tour de France climbs.
"It was on the to-do list, then obviously with Covid and the lockdowns we never got that opportunity.
"I saw the opportunity arise where you could ride the 21 stages of the Tour de France and also raise funds for Cure Leukaemia.
"For me it just ticked a lot of boxes and I said I would put my name forward for the application process and here we are now."
The route will take them from the Basque country to the German border, and includes several mountain stages including in the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Jura, the Alps and the Vosges.
For Dermot though the biggest challenge will be being away from his family.
"Being away from my family and home for three-and-a-half weeks will be the biggest challenge," he said.
"My wife and I have three young girls all under the age of six so no matter how busy our day to day lives get we always like to get home into our own corner.
"I think that's going to be a challenge for me and it's something I'm going to have to deal with."
Fundraising from the challenge is directly invested in the Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) which helps those fighting the cancer across the globe, including three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, who last year announced he is battling Chronic Myelogenous Leukaemia.
If you would like to donate to Dermot's fundraising efforts you can do so here
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