Having made a piece of Irish cycling history last month in London, the Irish women were back in action in the Hong Kong World Cup today. And while they just failed to get through to the next round for a second time, they went very close.
The Irish team pursuit line-up has just missed out on progressing to the next round at the World Cup meeting in Hong Kong.
With eight teams to go through to race again in the competition, the Irish women came home in eight place of the 14 teams.
They were beaten for the last place in the next round by less that two tenths of a second by the Canadian foursome.
The Irish recorded a time of 4:32.771. They were faster than Canada in the second and third kilometre.
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However, they got a slightly slower starter than Canada, who also finished out the 4km test strongly to keep their hopes alive.
However, it was a strong ride by the Irish team. It was made up by Orla Walsh, Mia Griffin, Kelly Murphy and Alice Sharpe.
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They had made a piece of cycling history last time out at the London World Cup. On that occasion, the same four women were in action for Ireland.
Back then they were the first Irish line-up to advance into the next round of the team pursuit since a change in format of the event in 2012 that effectively created a next round.
In London they clocked a time of 4:31.762, which was slightly faster than today. And just a fortnight before London they stopped the clock at 4:33.296 in the Berlin World Cup.
It means their time in Hong Kong today was just between the times of London and Berlin.
Today the Italians, who were 2nd to Team GB in London, were fastest; in a time of 4:21.339, or just over three seconds faster than in London.
Taking 2nd place today in qualifying was Germany, in 4:23.895, followed by New Zealand in 4:25.140.
Next came: Australia (4:25.554), France (4:27.587), Korea (4:29.005), Belgium (4:30.315) followed by Canada and then Ireland.
Also in Hong Kong this weekend, Alice Sharpe will he busy as she rides the scratch race and then the madison with Shannon McCurley.
Robyn Stewart will be in action in the sprint and keirin. Mark Downey and Felix English ride the madison and Olympian McCurley also rides the omnium.
The full results from today's team pursuit qualifying can be found by following this link.
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