Katie George Dunlvey and Linda Kelly have take silver in the road race at the Paris Paralympics after trying to shake off their Team GB rivals for most of the race only to be beaten by them at the finish.
Kelly said the Great Britain pairing - of Sophie Unwin and pilot Jenny Holl - were glued to their back wheel after the two tandems pulled clear to dominate the race. However, the British declined to do any work at the front, leaving it to the Irish pair to try and break clear on the climbs on the course.
While Dunlevy and Kelly managed to gap their rivals several times, they closed the gap to the Irish, hanging in doggedly to the finish, where they then had a superior sprint to win.
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It was Dunlevy's and Kelly's second medal of the Paralympics, after they won gold in the TT, while TT also took silver - with pilot Eve McCrystal - in the pursuit.
Also in action today in the same race as Dunlevy and McCrystal, Josephine Healion and pilot McCrystal finished in 4th place; a good innings for the Irish women, though it was clear the Dunlevy-Kelly pairing were hoping for the gold.
"I wanted to win the gold so I'm a bit disappointed, but a silver medal is amazing. It was a tough race, we were up the road with one of the GB bikes and they refused to do the work," said Dunlevy.
"So we were just at the front attacking on each hill trying to get away and we just couldn't get away from them. They are sprinters. I think we had nothing left at that stage after giving so much in the hills.
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“With all the setbacks and everything, it means a lot. I'm delighted. Lots of celebrations with family tonight. I'm just so proud that we're able to get a medal like this.”
Kelly said she and Dunlevy were "very, very happy" with the silver medal to add to their TT gold.
"We knew they were behind us and we were like, we were pushing, but then we had to ease off as well because we wanted to conserve our energy," she said.
"We did get in front of them down the technical zone, they were just glued to the back of our wheel. But I'm absolutely over the moon. As I said the other day, it's just like a dream. I'm absolutely delighted."
For their part, Healion and McCrystal said they were happy with their performance.
“It was very hard, very tough, but we're very happy with that," said Healion. "There's some really strong bikes and really strong women that have been at this longer than me.
"I did the best I could - I give it my all. "I'm not at the top of my game, not as seasoned as some of the rest of them but I want to get to that point.”
McCrystal added: “She did really well. It was probably the longest race that Josie has done, it was warm today, so we tried to just keep cooling as much as we could. We stayed with the group, and then we just got detached on the climb. Fourth was the best we could do today.”
