David Hourigan : RIP

hinault

I hope that this hasn't been posted already.

I remember David Hourigan racing in the early 1990's : very good rider.

I didn't realise that he was the young Irishman who died in Thailand recently.
RIP.


This is from the Sindo


INSPIRED as a teenager by the efforts of Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly, it wasn't long before a young Irishman named David Hourigan was racing against the best cyclists in the world.
Such was his talent, the young rider from Limerick was even pitted against world famous Lance Armstrong on the international circuit while they were both amateur cyclists.

However, life ended tragically for 38-year-old David Hourigan after his remains were found last week in a small flat in Thailand in the busy seaside resort of Pattaya, about 120 miles south of Bangkok. He had been living there for the past three months and it is believed he had been dead for three days before his badly decomposed body was discovered.
Mystery still surrounds the cause of his death.

The Hourigan family, who are originally from College Avenue, Moyross, on the northside of Limerick city, will have to endure a long wait before they are informed of how David died.
Amid the ongoing turmoil in Thailand where armed troops still patrol streets, no date has been set to repatriate the Irishman's remains after he is cremated. David's father, Brendan, is still waiting to hear when a post mortem will take place.

"I'm in the dark myself. We will get a death certificate saying 'Cause of Death: Unknown'. The results of an autopsy won't be out for 45 days. The undertaker will start moving things on Monday, but all we can do is wait -- that is all I can say at the minute," he said.
"The unfortunate thing is life and death out there [Thailand] is cheap. For them, it is just another foreigner who died -- another statistic," he added.
After his sports career ended, David Hourigan embarked on a new departure with his construction company, Premier Construction. Like in the construction industry elsewhere across the country, business rapidly declined with the onset of the economic recession and David started travelling overseas.

Brendan Hourigan said his eldest son was a regular visitor to Thailand. "He was building his own place out in Bruff URL="http://www.independent.ie/topics/County+Limerick"][COLOR=#306294]Co Limerick[/COLOR][/URL, but he liked travelling and liked it there and would describe it as 'My Thailand'," David's grieving father said.
However, David Hourigan was best known for his cycling exploits across the country's highways and byways and further afield.
Growing up in Moyross and attending St Nessan's Secondary School at a time when the nation's screens were filled with images of Charlie Haughey with Stephen Roche on the Champs Elysees, David was bitten by the cycling bug.
"He was inspired by Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly. Everyone started jumping on bikes then. At that time, cycling was very popular -- every village had a race," his father said.

"When he left school, he lived and trained like a professional cyclist, it became his priority. He was in bed early each night and up again in the morning preparing for races. He didn't drink, didn't smoke. He'd be into leg massages and that; he was very careful."

Pat Spaight, chairman of Limerick Cycling Club, watched David develop into a highly competitive cyclist from an early age.
"He had talent from the word go and I think that's the sure sign of any star. He started cycling somewhere around the mid-Eighties with 'Burgerland', which was the team sponsor's name," Pat Spaight said.
"He dominated the Irish junior scene in the Eighties and a decade later represented Ireland in a number of international events. He was on the Irish team in the Nissan Classic somewhere around the late Eighties; and at 18 years of age, he was actually the youngest rider," he continued.
Around this time, David was entered with Irish teams for events in the United Kingdom, America, France, Germany, Russia, Australia and Japan. One day, he came up against a young cyclist named Lance Armstrong.
David's father recalled the encounter: "He rode as a junior at the world championships in Moscow and he met a young junior from America. This American lad was going around telling everyone: 'Hiya Holmes'. Who should it be but Lance Armstrong. That was his memory of his first time meeting Lance Armstrong as a junior."

Pat Spaight went on: "He then joined Paddy Buckley Solicitors Cycling team in Blarney in the early Nineties and himself and Robert Power were known as the 'David and Robert show' because they won everything worth winning at the time. His biggest win was the Isle of Man amateur grand prix in 1992."
"He was also on Irish teams in the FBD Milk Ras and he won the yellow jersey at different times. He had great potential, but it is like everything in life, things did not work out for him," said Pat.
"However, he was a talented rider and everybody in the country knew him. He was dreaded when he appeared in races because he was so strong and he seemed unstoppable," he said.

After leading the way at the end of the first stage of the 1994 FBD Milk Ras from Dublin to Drogheda, David tested positive for a banned substance -- methyl testosterone. The Limerick man claimed that the drug was contained within a vitamin supplement that he had been consuming, but he was suspended from cycling for three months. It is understood that he bought the vitamin supplement in Thailand.

Brendan said one of his son's biggest disappointments was not making the Irish Olympic team.
"He set his heart on the Olympics, but he got injured and the team was nearly pre-selected when he was coming back into form. He won the Manx [Isle of Man] around that time, but was disheartened after he never made the Olympic team."
David's death marked the ultimate tragedy in a black year for the Hourigan family. Last July, their home in Moyross, where David grew up with his younger brothers, Gerard, Brian and Brendan junior, was burnt out. His father had kept a "mega" collection of memorabilia from his son's cycling days but the entire collection was destroyed in the blaze.
"I lost everything, it went up in smoke -- I have nothing now," said David's father.
"After the recession came in, the building business went and he went back to Thailand. He came home for a while, but work wasn't there, so he went back last November and he was there since. It is easy living out there so he got by -- he enjoyed it there.
"It's just sad, sad, sad," his father said

Joni O Sullivan

David, even though we didnt spend long together, you still made an impact on my life. I thought of you often over the years, wondering what you have done with your life.

I hope you are at peace.
Xxx
Joni