It was a tough day on the boards in London for the men's and women's pursuit teams at the UCI World Cup; the women pictured at the recent European Championships.
The Irish track team endured a difficult opening day at the UCI World Cup in London this afternoon, with both the men’s and women’s teams failing to advance from the qualifying rounds.
The women’s team of Caroline Ryan, Lydia Boylan, Josie Knight and Lauren Creamer were 12th after clocking a time of 4.39.813 for the 4km test.
That was marginally slower than their time at the previous round in Mexico last month when they clocked 4.39.462.
However, against a star-studded field they can take heart from the fact they beat some of the more established nations like the Ukraine, France and Belgium.
Advertisement
The Irish quartet was second off of the 19 teams who started today.
And with only the top eight advancing to the next round, the Irish women were always up against it.
They rode well and managed their effort impressively, going faster as the race progressed; something they did not do in Mexico. They were five seconds off 8th place, the last qualifying slot.
Favourites Great Britain went fastest in a blistering time of 4.23.406, just edging out great rivals Australia on 4.23.498 and Canada on 4.28.208.
The finals of this are scheduled for later tonight, Friday.
The Irish men were similarly off the pace in their event in London just after their female counterparts.
It was always going to be a massive challenge for such a patched-up team without the horse power of Martyn Irvine and Ryan Mullen; injured and rested respectively.
Related News
The men were missing Ryan Mullen and Martyn Irvine. But getting it right in the team event was always going to take time.
Cormac Clarke, Thomas Fallon, Javan Nulty and Sean Downey stopped the clock at 4:17.358.
Their time was six seconds slower than the time the Irish men recorded in Mexico.
As expected it was a fierce battle between Great Britain and Australia for the quickest time.
That honour went to the visitors who set an eye-watering time of 4.00.577, two seconds faster than the hosts, with Denmark in third on 4.02.428.
In the women’s 40-lap 10km scratch race final, Ireland’s Lydia Boylan was 13th. She came home in the bunch sprinting for bronze.
The gold medal went to Jannie Milena Salcedo of Colombia, with Lauren Stephens of the USA in second and Katarzyna Pawlowska of Poland taking the bronze medal.
The leading pair managed to take a lap out of everyone else.
Tomorrow sees Cormac Clarke and Javan Nulty in action in the points race.
Caroline Ryan is in action in the opening three rounds of the omnium while Eoin Mullen also has the keirin and the sprint.
Should Mullen advance, he will be back again in the evening for the semi-finals and finals.
Josie Knight had been down to start the points race but her name was not on the official start list today.
Topics
