The stars of the Paralympics five years ago, when they won gold and silver, Katie George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal have claimed Ireland’s first cycling medal at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
They won silver on the track in the early hours of this
morning, with their favoured road events still to come at these Games.
The duo broke the pursuit world record along the way,
setting a new marker in qualifying only for the British pair of Lora Fachie and her pilot Corrine Hall to lower the global
marker just after them.
Dunlevy, who is partially sighted,
and her pilot McCrystal scorched around the women’s ‘Tandem B’ 3000m pursuit
course in a time of 3:19.946 in qualifying, for an average speed of
54.015km/hr.
The British pair then stepped up onto the track and knocked out a new world record of 3:19.483.
Advertisement
Related News
Those times put the British
fastest in qualifying and the Irish women 2nd, setting up a Great
Britain Vs Ireland gold-silver ride-off at about 4am Irish time.
That final was a nail biter, with
the lead changing hands and the outcome in the balance for a long time, before
the British just had a little more than their Irish rivals to win.
Indeed Fachie and Hall were just
shy of the world record they had set in qualifying, riding the 3km gold-silver
race in a time of 3:19.560 compared to Dunlevy’s and McCrystal’s time of 3:21.505.
That’s a fantastic result for the
Irish duo – Paralympic champions from Rio and five-time World champions on the
road since those last Games; with two rainbow bands in the road race and three
in the TT.
The fact they have already won a
medal at these Games means their journey to Tokyo, and the years of preparation
leading up to it, have been a success. And with their even stronger road
race and TT events still to come, this may be the start of a multi medal run
for the duo.
More to come.
Topics
