Irish team pursuiters smash national record in brilliant Olympic debut

*The Irish team pursuit women have absolutely smashed their own national record on Olympic debut in Paris*

On the biggest stage in the sport, the Irish team pursuiters have smashed their own national record on debut at the Olympic Games, really rising to the occasion at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.

Lara Gillespie, Mia Griffin, Alice Sharpe and Kelly Murphy could be seen celebrating inside the velodrome moments after their ride. Cycling Ireland high performance director, Iain Dyer, was also beaming after they got such a good performance out of themselves.

With 10 teams in the competition, Ireland required a top eight result in order to advance into the next round. However, competing as one of the best 10 nations in the world always meant advancing would be a tall order.

And that only underlined the need to pull something out of the bag in their first ride and have no regrets with their own performance.

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When they rode, they had already beaten Japan, and clocked a time of 4:12:447 over the 4km distance, knocking their own Irish record out of the park.

That previous marker, of 4:15.697, was set by the same four riders at the UCI Nations Cup in Hong Kong last year.

But as the competition progressed, Ireland remained 9th of the 10 nations, meaning the four women did not advance in the competition, which was a shame but not totally unexpected. Their ability to go so much faster than they had ever done in competition was a huge performance.

In the end, the Irish were just over two tenths of a second behind Canada, who finished 8th and took the final spot in the next round.

Team Pursuit Qualifying