Katie George Dunlevy, and pilot Linda Kelly, have spoken of their delight and relief at being able to make one more big effort at the end of a long season to claim a second world title at the UCI World Road Championships in Zurich today.
The duo won the TT earlier in the week, meaning they repeated the Worlds double they achieved last year - with a Paralympic TT gold and road race silver in between. And though she was undecided - at least non-committal - just weeks ago about continuing her career to the LA Paralympics, Dunlevy was clearly setting her sights on the future after her latest big win today.
But, first, she is due a break and the decorated Irish international said that's what she would be her immediate focus after the highs of recent weeks.
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"It’s been a long, hard year for us but we’re delighted with the year. Take a break now and set ourselves up for next year," she said. "We’ve had the crashes on the bikes and illnesses, so mentally it’s been a tough year.
"Mentally it’s hard to prepare yourself for these races, it takes its toll on the body as well so yeah we’ll have a nice break and then we’ll get back to it again.”
Dunlevy said she was delighted to win again at the Worlds today, with her and Kelly way ahead of the opposition on the line, and with plenty of time to celebrate. But she was also thrilled Josephine Healion, with pilot Eve McCrystal, claimed the bronze.
“To have two Irish bikes on the podium, us and then Eve and Josie, it was just textbook," she said. "What we were hoping for, what we were dreaming for, we were hoping to get that in Paris, but we didn’t.
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"We came away with silver, I was actually disappointed not to defend my title but to do it here at the Worlds, I’m so proud of us. It was an amazing race, really enjoyed the course, it was a bit of everything.
"It’s just really exciting, it’s great to have these courses for tandems and I just hope that in the future they’ll be more challenging like this with hills and descents and everything technical, because you know we’re well able for it.
"Just to have a combined championships is amazing, it’s been fantastic and hopefully there will be more like these.
“We have a whole team behind us so it’s really to thank the team, and my family, my parents, my partner and all my sisters and everyone. We’ve a great support team believing in us so we believe in ourselves as well and that just helps so much.”
Kelly was also delighted with their day's work; indeed the spoils they had taken from a hugely successful season, which is now over.
“We’re just so happy to come back and do the double two years in a row," she said, adding they had also planned the race with Healion and McCrystal in advance; that duo pushing clear solo for much of the event.
“We did have a good think about it afterwards when we got home and before we got here. We had a chat with our coach, obviously we had a chat with our teammates Eve and Josie, and just talked about tactics as well as power and speed," she said.
"The type of course that it is as well, it did play to our strengths up the hills, going very fast down the descents you’re hitting 70 to 80 km/p, a lot of turns. So we did have a lot of thinking about it.”
