
Having gelled so well last season and lowered the national record, the Irish team pursuiters have done it again in Minsk.
During the opening of the last UCI World Cup the four women scorched to another new Irish marker.
And, crucially, they have also progressed into the next round of the competition; only the second time any Irish formation has done so at this level.
Late last year when they started riding competitively as a group, the Irish record stood at 4:31.666, a marker that dated back to 2015.
However, at the World Championships in Poland in February they lowered that record to 4:29.148.
And today in Minsk they have shattered their own record by close to four seconds with a time of 4:25.389.
It means the Irish have now broken the record by more than six seconds in their first year of international competition; a huge margin at this level.
They were 9.884 seconds down on the USA, who were fastest in the qualifiers today.
The Irish women placed 7th of the 11 teams in the event and they now got into the next round.
The team was made up of Lara Gillespie, Mia Griffin, Alice Sharpe and Kelly Murphy.
Gillespie, who took a medal in the individual pursuit at the junior Worlds during the summer was a new addition to the line-up.
She had traveled as reserve when the pursuiters rode the Europeans, where they were below their best, and got her chance today.
The reserve in Minsk is Emily Kay; a young British-based track talent who has declared for Ireland and rode the recent London Six Day with Alice Sharpe.
