Walsh & Meehan on the podium with the gold medal Kiwis and bronze medallists Great Britain at London 2012
By Caroline Martinez
Paracycling tandem duo Catherine Walsh and Francine Meehan scooped a Special Achievement Award at the Tatler Women of the Year awards in Dublin last weekend. The pair were recognized for their performance in the London Paralympic Games where they grabbed a road time-trial bronze and a silver medal in the 3km pursuit on the track.
Recently, Tullamore cyclist Meehan found time between winning another cyclocross race and attending another award ceremony for a quick chat with Stickybottle about her amazing year:
“For the past couple of weeks we've been going to all sorts of black tie events - it's been really cool. We got to do so many things, like having lunch with the President. A couple of months ago we were on the Late Late Show and the RTE sports awards. It's super.”
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The duo kicked off their winning streak last February in Los Angeles by winning the 3km Pursuit World Track Championships.
“We were second up, breaking the world record. We beat the British and we also beat the champions.”
As their world tour continued, so did their success. They subsequently won two more time-trial silver medals in World Cup events. They also competed in the Tour of Belgium, a five-stage tandem race in the summer.
“That's men and women mixed. So you might have thirty or forty tandem bikes in the bunch. It was just crazy racing.”
Then they were off to London for the Paralympics as part of Team Ireland. Meehan recalls her time there as something quite magical.
“It was like Christmas every day for us,” she said.
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Their target event was the 3km pursuit in the velodrome in which they would scoop silver:
“We ticked all the boxes we wanted to tick and we got beaten by a better bike on the day. We went under the old world record. We went quicker than ever before; did the best we could have hoped for with what we had. We’d a really good Paralympics. We took bronze then in the road time-trial and just absolutely buried ourselves on the last lap of the time-trial.”
All these results come after many sacrifices and time spent away from their families while training and racing. The two riders were completely dedicated to each other as a team and it paid off.
“We were very organized with our training and we were riding three or four times a week together. We put a lot of effort in and all the other little things like rest and recovery and never let each other down. There are a lot of sacrifices but they're worth it.”
Now that the tandem season is finally over Meehan isn't resting just yet. For now she is the women's category leader of the Fixx Coffeehouse Supercross Series.
The lack of a bigger women's cyclocross scene means that just a hand-full of women racers ride against the men. This isn't much of a problem for Fran: the 34 year old finished 16th and first women in last Sunday’s race in Punchestown, Co Kildare. She's also sponsored by her local bike shop MBW Tullamore - who gave her a Kona Major Jake for the season.
“It was a nice course but it wasn’t as nice as last week in Tymon Park. It was more suitable for road riders I suppose than cross riders; probably not as technical so it was harder to make up the gaps against the guys.”
As the 2013 season approaches, she will soon know more about her plans as part of the Walsh/Meehan duo, with their programme yet to be decided.
As for those of you who want to see the medals, you might have to have to book in advance.
“I’m still surprised when somebody comes up to me and ask ‘have you got the medals on you’?”
She may be adding to the trophy cabinet soon as team Walsh-Meehan are among the nominees for the Cycling Ireland Awards in the best female rider category.
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