Ireland bag silver and bronze at the Para-Cycling Road World Championships


Top 10 finish for Kay at the European Track Championships


(Photo by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)


Double Paralympic gold medallists Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal won silver today in the time trial at the Para-Cycling Road World Championships in Baie-Comeau, Canada adding to the silver they won at last year’s World Championships. The pair completed the 28.4km distance in a time of 40:46.74, some 49.53 seconds down on gold medal winners Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl from Great Britain. 


The current European Time Trial Champion, Ronan Grimes has shown great form of recent and today no different. Grimes went on to claim the bronze medal, finishing just over a minute and a half down on George Peasgood of Great Britain who won gold. 


Speaking after the time trial, Grimes said:

“It’s always a bit of a tough fight in the World Championships in my category to get a result and this today was no different. It was a course that had everything – climbs, corners, straights and I just about snuck a bronze in the end, so I’m really delighted.”



(Photo by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)


Josephine Healion and Linda Kelly also competed in the same event and were unfortunate to have a bad mechanical at the start and were delayed by 10 minutes before they got going again. The pair finished in 7th place. In the men’s tandem time trial, Irish riders Damien Vereker and Dillion Corkery unfortunately suffered a DNF due to a crash. 


At the European Championships earlier today, Ireland’s team pursuit squad finished 6th. The quartet of Alice Sharpe, Mia Griffin, Kelly Murphy and Lara Gillespie faced 7th fastest qualifier Poland. Ireland went faster than their qualifying run, catching and overtaking the Polish team to finish with a time of 4:25.487.


(Photo by Drew Kaplan)


Griffin believes their 6th place finish is something they can build on for the World Championships and future competition. 

“I think 6th place is a good place to start for the Europeans. I think it’s somewhere we can build on for the future and for the next Europeans that is coming close enough. We can go into Worlds I think with confidence from this and try and build and maybe try and put some teams behind us that have been in front of us here.”


Afterwards, Sharpe spoke about the challenge of passing the Polish team. 

“It’s always difficult, you’re trying to protect the riders behind you and take the team over as smoothly as possible which isn’t so easy. I think Poland split, I think three of them were dotted around the track, so the catch took a few laps, so it was a bit stressful.”  


Lara Gillespie made a return to the team pursuit line up for the first time in nearly a year, replacing Emily Kay in the line-up who competed in the scratch race today. The Wicklow rider has made a strong comeback after illness, recently competing in the under 23 European Track Championships and expressed her delight in racing with the squad again.

“I feel really grateful to slot back into such a strong team and it’s been a tough couple of years so it’s really good to be back.” 


Germany went on to win gold in the team pursuit beating Italy in the final while France came out on top against Great Britain to win the bronze medal. 


(Photo by Drew Kaplan)


Emily Kay produced a top 10 finish in the scratch race this evening, finishing in 9th position. The first attack of the 50-lap race came with about 11 laps to go which saw French rider, Labastugue go on the attack. The French rider spent about 5 laps out on her own before she was reeled in by the bunch. Stenberg of Normay proved strongest in the end outsprinting Roberts (Great Britain) and Wielowska (Poland). 


Kay commented after: 

“I’m happy and disappointed at the same time, I think I’m capable of a better result. I put myself in the bike race and it just didn’t play out the way I had anticipated but you know, that’s bike racing.”


Kay’s attention now switches to the omnium which takes place on Monday, 15th and feels she is well set up for it. 

“I feel like I got to test the legs yesterday and obviously this is a 200-metre track so I wanted to have a go and see how the race would go and how a finish would be here instead of a 250 (metre track), so I think I’ve learned some good stuff that I can take forward to the omnium and hopefully I can get a good result there.” Kay added. 


SQUAD UPDATE

Ryan Mullen is unavailable to do the Time Trial on Wednesday, 17th August due to his participation in La Vuelta with his team Bora-hansgrohe. 


Time Trial National Champion, Ben Healy will fly the flag for Ireland in the event.  


RESULTS: FRIDAY, 12 AUGUST

Track

Alice Sharpe, Lara Gillespie, Kelly Murphy, Mia Griffin: Team Pursuit – 6th 

Emily Kay: Scratch Race Final – 9th


Para-Cycling Road World Championships

Time Trials

Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal (WB) - Silver

Ronan Grimes (MC4) - Bronze

Josephine Healion and Linda Kelly (WB) – 7th

Damien Vereker and Dillon Corkery (MB) – DNF 



SCHEDULE: SATURDAY, 13 AUGUST

Track 

From 09:35 – 500m TT Qualifying (Orla Walsh)

From 10:46 – Individual Pursuit Qualifying (Kelly Murphy)

16:58 – 500m TT Final 

17:22 – Individual Pursuit Final 

18:46 – Elimination Race Final (Alice Sharpe)


BMX

18:00 – Men’s Park Final 


Para-Cycling Road World Championships 

19:45 ‐ 22:00 - MH3 and MH5 Road Race - Declan Slevin (MH3), Gary O’Reilly (MH5)