By Shane Stokes
The two gold medals secured by Irish Paralympic duo Katie-George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly last week were the standout results from the Irish team’s participation in the road World Cup in Maniago, Italy. But they also mark a break from Dunlevy’s longtime collaboration with Eve McCrystal in tandem events.
Dunlevy and McCrystal have been a sparkling partnership over the years, winning a spate of medals including two golds and a silver in the 2021 Paralympic gold in Tokyo, gold and silver at the 2016 Games, six road World Championship titles plus the Paracycling World Cup series title they sealed last August.
This time around, Dunlevy will be piloted by Kelly during the World Cup campaign, while McCrystal will join forces with Josephine Healion. The latter duo placed fourth in the time trial in Italy last Friday and tenth in Sunday’s road race.
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National Paracycling coach Jamie Blanchfield explained the tandem changes, telling Stickybottle that the pairings have been decided to try to maximise the numbers of riders who could qualify for Paris 2024. He said that Ireland had already secured two slots last year, one male, one female, due to the number of ranking points the country had amassed.
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These slots are not attributed to any specific bike or individual, with selection for these slots to be made at a later point according to the, yet to be published, Paralympics Ireland criteria. The decision around the women’s tandem partnership relates to the current chase for additional slots.
“As of 1st Jan 2023 a new qualification mechanism for Paris commenced for all further Nations slots which runs until June 2024,” Blanchfield explained. “In this system, all road World Cups and world championships until June 2024 are counting events towards Paris 2024. As such, the big drive for us this year is to maximise our Nations ranking towards Paralympic qualification. All our riders know it’s a case of all shoulders to the wheel to ensure performances in competition yield strong ranking points.
“We have four female tandem riders that secured podium results at the World Cups, European championships and road world championships last year. This provides a unique opportunity this year to combine pairings and leverage the ability and experience of these riders to maximise the qualification prospects for the team for Paris. Everyone is looking forward to the challenge and kicking off this phase of the qualification campaign with a positive start.”
Dunlevy and Kelly do already have experience competing together, winning the time trial at last year’s European championships. They were second in the road race despite a mechanical problem. The duo also competed together at the Elzach Paracycling World Cup, winning the road race and time trial.
Dunlevy and McCrystal then returned to their usual partnership for the world championships last August, winning the tandem road race and taking silver in the time trial. Kelly and Healion had serious mechanical issues in the time trial but secured the bronze medal in the road race.
All going to plan, changing things around will secure additional places for Paris 2024. It is not clear if Dunlevy and McCrystal could resume their multiple gold medal-winning collaboration at a later point.
