The Irish team has taken two medals on the second day of competition at the Paracycling World Championships in Canada. Katie George Dunlevy and her pilot Eve McCrystal took silver in the TT while Ronan Grimes claimed bronze in his race against the clock.
Grimes said he was delighted to take a medal, though double Paralympic champions Dunlevy and McCrystal were honest in their appraisal, saying they were disappointed with their result as they were aiming for gold.
The Irish women clocked a time of 40:46.74 over the 28.4km course, some 49.53 seconds down on winners Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl of Great Britain.
"It’s always a bit of a tough fight in the World Championships in my category to get a result and this today was no different," said Grimes. "It was a course that had everything – climbs, corners, straights and I just about snuck a bronze in the end, so I’m really delighted."
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Josephine Healion and Linda Kelly - fresh from two silvers at the recent World Cup - suffered a mechanical at the start of their TT today. That delayed them by 10 minutes, leaving them no chance of aiming for a medal. Damien Vereker and Dillion Corkery did not finish their TT due to a crash.
At the elite Europeans in Munich, the Irish team pursuiters rode Round 1 against Poland today, catching them to confirm 6th place in the competition. Alice Sharpe, Lara Gillespie, Mia Griffin and Kelly Murphy clocked a time of 4:25.487.
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Griffin said the 6th place finish was something the quarter would now aim to better. “I think 6th place is a good place to start for the Europeans. I think it’s somewhere we can build on for the future and for the next Europeans that is coming close enough," she said.
"We can go into Worlds I think with confidence from this and try and build and maybe try and put some teams behind us that have been in front of us here.”
Afterwards, Sharpe spoke about the challenge of catching and passing the Polish team, who were 7th in yesterday's qualifying to Ireland's 6th.
“It’s always difficult, you’re trying to protect the riders behind you and take the team over as smoothly as possible which isn’t so easy. I think Poland split, I think three of them were dotted around the track, so the catch took a few laps, so it was a bit stressful.”
Emily Kay - who was part of the team pursuit line-up in qualifying yesterday - was replaced by Gillespie in the team today as she was riding the scratch race. She finished 9th in that event.
Meanwhile, also at the European Championships in Munich, Ryan Mullen has decided to withdraw from the Irish team for the TT next Wednesday. It means Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) it will Ireland's solo representative in the event.
Mullen is unable to start the TT as he has been confirmed on the Bora-hansgrohe team for La Vuelta, which gets underway just two days after the men's elite TT at the Europeans; his withdrawal unavoidable in the circumstances.
