The Irish women's pursuit team - Mia Griffin, Kelly Murphy, Alice Sharpe and Lara Gillespie - have expressed their delight and pride at putting in their best ever ride, by far, on their Olympic debut in Paris today.
Competing in a field of 10 nations, only the first eight would progress in the competition, which was always going to be difficult for the Irish.
Though they beat Japan, and were bettered by only two tents of a second by Canada, the Irish had to settle for 9th, meaning they did not advance.
However, they smashed their own Irish recording; setting a time 4:12:447, over three seconds faster than their own national record of 4:15.697, with Gillespie and the others saying they were delighted.
Lara Gillespie said it was "cool" to be an Olympian, adding the atmosphere in the velodrome was "absolutely amazing".
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"This is what we've all been working so hard for. It's really special to be here with all these girls, I'm so proud of us. It's just great to be part of this team."
Murphy echoed those sentiments, saying the four of them - and reserve Erin Creighton - had embarked on a long journey to even qualify for Paris.
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"This has been the culmination of two years of really hard work," said Murphy. "You know, to come to the world's biggest race and do a big PB (personal best) is something we've been dreaming of.
"And to make it a reality today is a real joy. I still can't quite believe it. For use the race really started two years ago, we had to be top 10 to even be here today.
"We saw off a lot of the best teams, with some of the world's best riders. And that was almost the hard part, today was almost a free ride, an opportunity to really showcase ourselves in front of our friends and family. I'm really proud of us."
Sharpe said the team knew they had to go out and set a new national record if they were to be in the mix for progress, only missing out in the end, to Canada, by just over two tenths of a second for 8th place.
"That was our goal, to come and do a PB and kind of race our own race, see where we are amongst the field. We definitely put in a performance that we're proud of."
Griffin said, in the context of Ireland having no velodrome, the team "punches above our weight as a small nation".
"We're a small group of girls and we get together and we're close-knit, a really good tight team. And I think we put on a display today that we can so, so be proud of. I'm just really happy that we put on this performance, and we know we left everything that we had on the track."
