Ireland's Brown and Shaw getting their silver medals in LA
The Irish team has kicked off its UCI Paracycling World Track Championships campaign in great style in Los Angeles overnight, taking gold in the female tandem pursuit and silver in male event.
The famous rainbow bands – Ireland’s first ever at a Para Track Worlds - went to the Irish duo of Catherine Walsh and her pilot Fran Meehan. They broke their own Irish record on the way to victory in the Home Depot Velodrome in Carson, LA.
Walsh and Meehan stormed through the qualifiers to set up a gold medal ride off with the British female tandem duo of Aileen McGlynn and Helen Scott.
The British pair looked like they were going to romp away with it, building an apparently insurmountable lead of three seconds by the half way stage in the 3km event.
Advertisement
However, Walsh and Meehan refused to panic. They simply stuck to their task and pegged back the British team’s lead before moving ahead of them and having three seconds to spare at the finish.
The Irish team manager Denis Toomey said the final was hugely exciting and brought the crowd to its feet.
Walsh’s and Meehan’s time of 3:37.392 in the qualifiers was a new Irish record.
Related News
Not to be outdone by the rainbow-banded Irish women, the Irish male new pairing of James Brown and pilot Damien Shaw also set a new national record of 4:26.778 in the qualifiers to get into a gold medal ride off with Australia.
But despite a massive effort in the final on the part of the Irish duo, the Australian pairing of Bryce Lindores and Scott McPhee simply weren’t taking no for an answer. They grabbed an early lead and built it all the way to the finish, where they were three seconds ahead.
However, Brown and Shaw were delighted with silver. And the blow of missing out on a world title was somewhat softened by the knowledge that their silver was enough to guarantee them a place for the Paralympics in London in the summer.
Also overnight, Irish tandem newcomers Katie-George Dunlevy and Pilot Sandra Fitzgerald set a personal best time of 3:48.767 to secure a very promising 7th place in the qualifiers.
In the men’s tandem pursuit, Andrew Fitzgerald and pilot Con Collis were 6th in a personal best time of 4:33.334. That would have been a new Irish record except for silver medallists Brown and Shaw going faster in their heat.
Late tonight (Friday) Irish time and into the early hours of tomorrow morning, Ireland’s three single bikes of Colin Lynch C2, Enda Smyth C3 and Cathal Miller C5 are in action in the pursuit qualifiers, with the finals to follow a couple of hours later. All four tandems will also be back in action in the 1km Individual TT.
