Irish paracycling's biggest beasts have had a mixed time at the UCI Paracycling World Track Championships in Paris, where Ronan Grimes has claimed a silver medal but Katie George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal have been forced out of the championships.
Grimes - already the MC4 world road race champion and European TT champion - won the silver medal in the individual pursuit in Paris on the opening day of competition, only denied gold by world record holder Jozef Metelka of Slovakia.
Metelka went into the event as pre-race favourite and justified that tag by qualifying fastest in a time of 4:32.837. Grimes was 2nd, clocking 4:42.111. And when that pairing went into the silver-gold ride-off it was Metelka who won, though Grimes became the first rider the Slovakian was unable to catch in a ride-off. New Zealand’s Devon Briggs took the bronze medal after battling Colombia’s Diego Duenas Gomez.
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“I’m delighted really," said Grimes after his medal-winning ride. "I think today in the individual pursuit, I thought silver would be the best that I ever thought I could get and to come away with it is a great feeling.”
Also in action on the opening day of racing, Richael Timothy rode the flying 200m event, which was part of the omnium. She set a new national record of 13.377 in the WC3 category, recording the 3rd quickest time. Later in the day she was also in action in the 500m TTT, qualifying in 6th place for the finals with a time of 42.066 and going on to finish 6th in the final.
Grimes and Chris Burns were also in action in the flying 200m; both breaking the national record in their categories. Burns clocked a time of 12.078, setting the 3rd fastest time in the MC2 category while Ronan Grimes’s time of 11.695 saw him finish in 7th position.
The flying 200m is only part of the omnium, which means there were no Worlds medals on offer. The individual pursuit, 500m/Kilo TT and scratch race are all individual events - meaning each is a world title race - but they also form part of the the four-event omnium.
While Paralympic champions Dunlevy and McCrystal were due to ride the pursuit today, they were forced out after Dunlevy fell ill; a big blow for them and also for the Irish team. In their absence, Timothy was in action in the scratch race; an event she won bronze in during the 2020 Worlds. Today she went very close to taking another medal but had to settle for 4th after a battling ride.
“It was an easy enough race," she said. I suppose I was on the front for a good bit and probably looking back now I should’ve gone. I might’ve had a better chance. But I think I thought there was longer left than there actually was so it’s probably my own fault really.
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“I think I’ve done better than what I had expected I suppose time wise and then the scratch race I had obviously hoped to medal in that, and I came as close as I could have. It’s been really good, it’s good to get the chance to race. I like the velodrome here so hopefully tomorrow will go well.”
Chris Burns finished in fifth place in the Kilo. He took two seconds off the national record - clocking 1:14.383 - in qualifying. He then rode 1:15.122 in the final to finish 5th.
“It was a very positive and consistent performance. I’m just going out to be consistent and hopefully improve that a little bit but we got the consistency and we’re still in the shout for the omnium so it’s all still to play for," he said.
“Yesterday’s events gave me good confidence going into today. I was really surprised I beat my own Irish record by two seconds, it was a big chunk to take off that so I’m over the moon with that."
Meanwhile, Grimes finished 8th in the MC4 scratch race today; his result not reflecting the quality of his ride. He very nearly gained a lap before being reeled back in. Later a long range attack saw him recaptured with just two laps to go after 15 laps off the front.
“It was a sixty-lap race and I think from the gun I tried an effort with the Kiwi rider, and we got so close to gaining a lap. I’d say we were ten metres before the wheels started fell off – ten metres from catching the bunch and it (the gap) just went out and out," he said.
"So, we were away for I think fifteen or twenty laps. I came back in the bunch, and I think I gave it another go again by myself with I don’t know how many laps I was away, maybe another ten or fifteen and got caught with two to go. I came nowhere in the end; I tried my hardest. I had good fun today. I went all in for the win and unfortunately, I didn’t come away with anything, but I enjoyed it at least."
Also today, the tandem pairings of Martin Gordon and Eoin Mullen and Damien Vereker and Marcin Mizgajski competed in the MB 1km TT.
Gordon and Mullen narrowly missed out on a spot in the final after recording the 7th quickest time, with the top six progressing to the final. Their time of 1:03.239 is a solid performance for their first time competing together. Vereker and Mizgajski also missed out on a position in the final with their time of 1:06.717.
