Lydia Boylan on the podium at the World Track Championships in Poland. She secured a silver medal in the points race and only just missed out on the world title (All photos by Guy Swarbrick)
Lydia Boylan has spoken of her delight at securing a silver medal at the World Track Championships. She adds her points race silver to the silver she took in the madison at the Europeans two years ago.
Yesterday in Poland Australian Alexandra Manly placed third in the final sprint. That was enough to put her one point ahead of Boylan in the final standings.
And after the Irish rider came track legend Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands in the bronze medal position.
Manly rides for the Mitchelton-Scott trade team on the road. In January she became Australian U23 road race and TT champion.
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She was also part of the Australian team pursuit line-up that won the world title last week at Worlds. And she took Commonwealth Games gold in the same event last year.
Wild has won six world titles and six European crowns on the track. At these worlds she won two golds.
She claimed the rainbow bands in the madison and omnium as well as silver in the scratch race and her points race bronze.
Boylan was in big company and secured a very hard to come by medal by winning a sprint and gaining two laps.
“It still hasn’t sunk in that I’ve finally done something on the world stage. It’s a big boost of confidence for me, for sure,” she said.
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Lydia Boylan takes a look at the damage on the attacking during the race, celebrating on the podium.
Lydia Boylan continued: “That sort of racing suits me, because I know I can just dig deeper. We push ourselves so hard in training."
“I kept taking a sneaky look up at the leader board, and I knew I needed to move up.
“I moved up and I gave it my best, but the legs fell off a bit in the last couple of laps. I still can’t believe it.
"I'm overwhelmed to be honest," she added. "I'm not sure when that will sink in. Just incredible, hard work paying off.
"I'd been struggling to position myself for the sprints and getting caught out. Then I was trying to force the lap too much.
“But I just went at the right time and thankfully the Russian joined me or I would have been pretty cooked out there on my own.
"I took the lap too late to have something left for the final sprint. But a silver medal is amazing," she added of missing points in the final sprint at the end of the race.
Atmosphere in Irish team
Lydia Boylan also said when Mark Downey won points race bronze on Friday; it gave the whole Irish team a lift.
"Mark's medal definitely gave us a boost," she said. "I've been training with Mark for a long time and I always joke he's my derny.
"It's absolutely incredible for two of us to be going home with a medal," she added of an historic achievement.
The only other Irish woman to ever taken a medal at an elite worlds was Caroline Ryan. She took bronze in the points race in Melbourne in 2012.
While the points race is not on the Olympic programme, Boylan’s best chance of qualifying for Tokyo 2020 is in the madison. Riding with Shannon McCurley, she was 9th in that event at these worlds.
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