The Irish paracycling team has enjoyed significant success at the European Championships with two gold medals among its haul so far in Austria. Ronan Grimes is the new European champion while the new tandem pairing of Katie George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly have also picked up a European title.
The latest medal win came today, Saturday, when Dunlevy and Kelly competed in the road race, after their TT success, and claimed silver, overcoming a mechanical issue along the way. Eve McCrystal is normally Dunlevy's tandem pilot at major races though Kelly is deputising at these championships.
Grimes has been slowly moving up the ranks on the international stage and just missed a medal at the Paralympics last year and was clear very happy to take his first major victory in Austria yesterday.
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“I’m delighted to take my first top step on the podium at an international race it’s an amazing feeling and for it to be a European Championships and the jersey you get from that is an added bonus really,” he said.
While Dunlevy has take world titles before, and claimed two golds last year at the Paralympics, that did not dampen her delighted at hers and Kelly's victory in Austria yesterday.
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“Absolutely delighted with that and the European Championship jersey is something we really wanted coming here," she said. "It was a challenging course; it was a different course to last week in Germany and just thrilled with that.”
Yesterday was the double gold day for the Irish team when Dunlevy and Kelly were best in the B tandem title race and Grimes was fastest of the MC4 TT field.
Dunlvey and Kelly had gone
into these championships with recent World Cup victory in the bag and at the
Europeans. Over a hilly course, they again beat British riders Jenny Holl and
Sophie Unwin into 2nd place; this time by 32 seconds. The Belgian pairing
took bronze.
In his test, Grimes took victory by 16 seconds from Louis Clinke with Michael Carlier of France taking 3rd place. Richael Timothy was fourth in her TT while the new pairing of Damien Vereker and Dillon Corkery placed 5th in their race and Chris Burns was 7th in his.
More to come.
