Gold medal winners at the last two Paralympic Games, Katie George Dunlevy and her pilot, Eve McCrystal, have brought their glittering international partnership to a close today with silver on the track at the Paris Paralympics.
The dynamic duo, who have delivered the goods for Ireland again and again over the last decade, took their latest honour in the women's B 3000m individual pursuit.
They came very close to the gold, missing out by just 2.166 seconds to Team GB's Sophie Unwin and her pilot, Jenny Holl. The Irish duo led for the first two kilometres before their British rivals brought them back and then passed.
Dunlevy and McCrystal clocked a time of 3:21.315, almost one second slower than the time they set in qualifying. However, though they would have loved the gold, they were up against a top partnership and should have no regrets after such a glittering partnership down the years.
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"We left it out there in those two rides. We did the race of our lives there to get that medal and we had to," said Dunlevy, who broke her collar bone in May, crashing during a World Cup race only to remount and finish despite the broken bone.
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"We were up against it and we delivered under pressure. I'm so proud of us both for doing that together," Dunlevy added of bring beaten by the British pair, who broke the world record on the way to gold.
After the race, McCrystal confirmed it was her last event with Dunlevy, with the duo already having been mixed around with Josephine Healion, and her pilot on the track today Linda Kelly, as efforts were made to maximise the results of both Irish tandems.
"That's our last ride together. To finish that off with a silver medal at the Paralympic Games backing up after Tokyo, I actually can't believe it," McCrystal said.
"I think I left my soul on the first ride and then to back it up, I'm so proud but I knew we could do it. We have to do it on the day. When you're so close to gold, you're slightly disappointed you didn't get it but we're absolutely ecstatic with silver."
Healion - and her pilot Kelly - set the fifth fastest time today, with 3:27.425. That was a new personal best for them and delivered them to 5th, though they missed out on the fight for medals as a result.
