Eoghan Clifford stormed his way around the course in Pontal, Brazil today, clocking the fastest time in the C3 time-trial to take his first ever paralympic gold medal and increase Ireland's medal tally to five.
By Brian Canty
Eoghan Clifford has won a gold medal for Ireland at the Paralympics in Brazil, the Galway Bay CC rider blitzing the C3 time-trial in 38:21:79.
The treble world champion brings Ireland’s medal tally in cycling to three after he took bronze in the C3 Individual Pursuit on the track earlier in the week and Colin Lynch took silver in the C2 time-trial earlier today.
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In total, Ireland have now taken five medals at the Games after track sprinters Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop both took gold medals in the 100m and 1,500m, respectively.
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Clifford told stickybottle in an interview last week that if things went his way on the day he has every chance of taking a good result but he also admitted that preparation had not been quite what he’d hoped for because of injuries.
But he need not have been so concerned because today, in Pontal north of Sau Paulo, he was a class apart.
The NUIG lecturer absolutely shredded the field on the 37-kilometre course, winning by 1:08 from Masaki Fujita of Japan and Canada’s Michael Sametz.
He’s not finished yet, mind and he will be aiming to medal in his final event of the Games when he and Colin Lynch take to the line for the C1-C3 road race which gets underway at 1.30pm Irish time.
More to follow...
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