Bike fans share excitement ahead of Senior TT
Bike fans on the Isle of Man have been sharing their excitement ahead of the Senior TT Race at the 2025 festival.
The event, which started on 26 May, is scheduled to culminate with the blue ribbon six-lap event on Saturday.
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Gerrard Fox from County Caven, who will be watching at Kirk Michael while rooting for Michael Dunlop, said he would never miss the final race of the competition.
Visiting for his fifth festival, he said: "If you live for bikes, all your Christmases come at once when you get on the ferry to the island.
"It's so different to when you're watching it on the telly, it makes you feel alive."
On the island with his partner Martina Kavanagh, she said: "People don't understand it, they say it's such a dangerous sport.
"But it's amazing to think about what they're doing, and the love and passion they have for for it.
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"The biking community here is just brilliant."
Ali and Rob Graham want to see a six-lap Senior TT race [BBC]
Rob and Ali Graham, from Colby, are hoping the changeable weather forecast, which has caused delays and postponements at the 2025 meeting, will not see a reduction in the number of laps at the Senior TT.
Ms Graham said the couple, who have been involved in rallies and the Southern 100 on the island for many years, "like to see a six-lap race because it really tests them, but if it has to be four it's better than nothing at at all".
Mr Graham said: "It is a spectacular event and the weather makes it – it's just been disappointing for them for this year, but has to be safe for the riders and enjoyable for the spectators."
Ann Campbell from Onchan takes newcomers to the TT to the Creg-ny-Baa to spectate [BBC]
Ann Campbell, from Onchan, said she enjoyed all that the festival brought to the island each year, including the annual visit from the Red Arrows and the live entertainment.
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"Some of the locals prefer to go on holiday but the majority of us like to stay here, because there's nowhere in the world that has a bike race like this.
"Next week this will all be gone, at the moment you get to hear the bikes roar past and it gives you a little tickle in your tummy."
She said she would be heading to the Creg-ny-Baa to watch the Senior TT, which is her favourite spot to take first-timers to because "we sit in the field and it feels as though they're about a yard away from your feet".
Derek Adams has been visiting the Isle of Man TT since 1990 [BBC]
But for Derek Adams, from Stoke on Trent, the climax of the week of racing on the 37.7-mile (61km) course "isn't the highlight" of his holiday.
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"Yes, it's the big race but also as long as we get to see some racing - we're happy."
Visiting since 1990, he said "we've been coming here that long, we aren't just here for the racing".
"The whole atmosphere of being at the TT is just brilliant, it isn't just the bikes, it's the people too."
Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
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She was here to represent people who look like her, 'who maybe don't feel as supported during this time period, and so just being that reflection of hope and light.' Last fall, at the start of all those changes, it looked like getting an opportunity to do that might take a while. Four months, maybe six. Maybe more. But, eventually, the serve was going to be more assured and she was going to be able to boss her way around the court as she never had against the best players in the world, being the aggressor rather than the counterpuncher, if that was what the moment required. Very quickly, Gauff was all in. She doesn't do much halfway, and she didn't on Saturday, on the court or off it, even if this was a match in which she had to inhabit the role of supporting actor in the face of Sabalenka's desire to play first-strike from the off. She'd won one of these Grand Slams already, but she said this one was harder. In between, she'd had five more shots at a second, and the closest she had come was a semifinal. She didn't want to be a one-hit wonder, and she really wanted this title. With her speed, endurance and willingness to fight the wars of attrition that red clay can require, she had heard for years that this tournament offered her one of her best shots at a major. Advertisement 'I just felt like if I went through my career and didn't get at least one of these, I would feel regrets,' she said. She'd already had plenty of those. Before facing Iga Świątek in 2022, she cried, because she was so nervous. She struggled to breathe. She knew she'd lost before she'd even hit the first ball. Świątek rolled her over and went on to dominate this tournament as few have done. Until this year, when Sabalenka under the roof proved one set too many. On Saturday, Gauff said she felt ready to leave her heart and her lungs on the court, and regardless of the result she could leave proud. Gauff fell behind early in the first set but clawed her way back as Sabalenka's errors mounted, and she grew more confident that she could put the ball past her when she needed to. She also began to weather Sabalenka's blistering returns, watching more and more of them pound into the net. She started reading the drop shots and legging out the net battles. Still, she ended up on the short end of a 77-minute first set when Sabalenka grabbed the last three points of a tiebreak. No one knew it then, but that would be as good as it got for Sabalenka. Gauff sat on her chair and told herself to take the pressure off the match. Losing would not be the end of the world. She hates losing, but it happens. She'd go home, she'd see her boyfriend, she'd reset. 'I was able to loosen up after that and play a little bit freer,' she said. In weathering the Sabalenka storm but losing the set, she had also forced her opponent to confront her own discomfort. A 6-1 or 6-2 blowout and Sabalenka, who was less able to deal with the intangibles of wind and weather than Gauff, would have been relaxed. The grind she got pulled into sent her into a spiral from which she could not recover. Gauff embraced Sabalenka's descent from a first-strike machine with a lethal drop shot into a player swinging from side to side, trying anything to keep Gauff off balance but, in doing so, sending the American into the side-to-side defense dance that she can do better and longer than anyone in the world. Gauff applied just enough pressure to let the wind and Sabalenka's brain do the work. Advertisement When it was over, Sabalenka's mind was still a jumble, claiming that some supernatural force had sent ball after ball off the frame of Gauff's racket into the corners of the court, 'like somebody from above was just staying there laughing, like: 'let's see if you can handle this.'' The person asking her if she could handle this was actually on the other side of the net. Gauff knew it had been a decade since her inspiration, Serena Williams, — or any other American — had won this title. Williams helped her dream that she could one day do it. With 15,000 people in the stadium chanting her name as the win grew closer, she had her chance to do that for someone else, 'to represent the Americans that look like me and people who support the things that I support.' Nine months after the start of her journey into the unknown, she found out what it was all for. Deep down, she had always known.
