The Irish team pursuiters - Lara Gillespie, Alice Sharpe, Mia Griffin and Kelly Murphy - are now assured of their places at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer after the UCI published its latest team pursuit world rankings.
With 10 nations to qualify for the Games in the team pursuit, Ireland were in 6th place - and already looking very good to get to Paris - before their recent outing at the UCI Nations Cup in Hong Kong.
However, they went to Hong Kong and broke their own national record, securing a place in the gold-silver race against New Zealand and ultimately coming away with the silver against the Kiwis.
And that performance has, as expected, moved them even further up the Olympic qualification nations rankings; from 6th to 4th at present. While there is one more round of the UCI Nations Cup to come next month in Milton, Canada, it now seems the Irish do not need to ride it.
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Their points tally of 7,525 is so far ahead of most of the other nations behind them in the top 10 that they cannot be passed and bumped out of the qualification slots.
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Cycling Ireland's high performance coach, Iain Dyer told stickybottle a couple of weeks ago he was hopeful the team could secure their berths for Paris at the Hong Kong meeting, adding if they did so the focus could switch to preparing for Paris.
And while there are still some opportunities for teams for the Americas and Asia to score points, Ireland's tally now means they have qualified.
“All the European teams will be aware that with the Pan Am and Asian continental championships still to come there will be plenty of movement in the rankings in the coming months," Dyer said earlier this month.
“However, we know if we perform well in Hong Kong next month we can put it to bed and focus our attention on preparing for Paris.”
Team Pursuit Rankings | Top 15
1 NEW ZEALAND 10,650
2 GREAT BRITAIN 9,030
3 AUSTRALIA 8,530
4 IRELAND 7,525
5 ITALY 7,240
6 JAPAN 7,030
7 GERMANY 6,840
8 FRANCE 6,655
9 CHINA 6,440
10 CANADA 6,070
11 UNITED STATES 5,950
12 POLAND 4,075
13 SPAIN 3,259
14 NIGERIA 2,954
15 MEXICO 2,938
