Among Ireland’s biggest stars at the Tokyo Paralympics, Katie George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal looked in ominous form in their first outing at the Games on the track earlier today.
While they did not take a medal, the road – not the
velodrome - has always been their favoured environment and it’s where they have
churned out the golds year after year at the highest level.
But on the velodrome this morning in Japan they still churned out their fastest ever 1km TT, suggesting their condition is exactly where it needs to be for the much bigger goals to come.
They set a new PB and national record of 1:09.044 in the B
tandem 1000 metre Time Trial, which left them in 6th place. The gold
medal was won by Holland’s Larissa Klaassen with pilot Imke Brommer in a time
of 1:05.291.
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“I’m really happy with our race, really happy with our
result because we got a personal best by 1.3 second. We’re just delighted with
the race. We couldn’t have done any more, a PB is fantastic,” said Dunlevy.
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“Got the pursuit coming up on the Saturday and that is the one we are targeting. It is the endurance event and we have medaled in that in the past – that’s what we are aiming for. We are really looking forward to getting going now at this stage.
“We know what we are doing, we have a plan and it is about executing that plan on the day and seeing where we come. Hopefully we’ll get the podium – we’ll give it our best.”
McCrystal said she and Dunlevy looked on today’s race as
a “nerve settler”; a reference to easing into these Games with eyes on gold in
coming days.
“It was really good to have it before the three kilometre
event, so that we could go through the warm up, the procedure. We went
nearly one and a half seconds faster,” she said.
“I think it is the new national record and that’s all you
can do on the day is go faster than you’ve gone before and I think it shows
that we’ve form hopefully it will carry through to the next three events.”
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