In a game of tenths, even hundredths, of a second, the Irish team pursuit line-up have taken a big step forward in smashing their own national record for the event at the UCI Nations Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia, today.
The Irish riders - Mia Griffin, Lara Gillespie, Alice Sharpe and Kelly Murphy - had only set a new Irish record at the recent European Track Championships in Switzerland but have now done it again, by a very large margin. And that progress, in such a short period of time, strongly suggests these riders still have a lot more to give.
At the Europeans - where they eventually finished 5th - the team recorded a time of 4.19.705, just 33 hundredths of a second faster than their previous record. However, today in Jakarta they shaved just over two seconds off that time.
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Their time of 4.17.525 saw them beat that record set just two weeks ago at the Europeans by 2.180 seconds; a huge margin of improvement in this event and at this level. That effort saw the Irish women finishing in 5th place in qualifying today, meaning they go through to the next round.
New Zealand were fastest, in a time of 4:10.950, from Great Britain (4:14.729), France (4:15.036) and Australia (4:15.440) followed by Ireland. The other nations placing in the top eight today, and so also advancing to the next round, were Japan (4:20.053), Canada (4:22.457) and Italy (4:24.163).
The Irish women will now be paired with 8th-placed Italy in tomorrow's first round. They will need to set a top four time to race for medals in the finals on Friday afternoon. Mia Griffin is also in action again on Friday, in the elimination race.
