Katie George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly had won their WB road race at the World Championships in Scotland while Ronan Grimes has taken silver in the MC 4 road race. Dunlevy and Grimes add their gold medal from today to the TT gold they won last week.
Dunlvey almost claimed a bronze in the individual pursuit, with Eve McCrystal as pilot, at these championships. Furthermore, Grimes had already won two bronze medals on the track before making the podium road race today.
Dunlevy and Kelly suffered a major set-back today when they suffered a puncture. They were forced to stop and change before getting going again to chase after the group they had been in. Closing a gap of about 40 seconds, they then went through the group and set off after the Polish duo who had gone clear solo.
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The Irish women got across to the Poles, then attacking them and riding away to the gold medal. McCrystal and Josephine Healion, who were unfortunately ruled out of the TT at these championships through illness, were in action today and were fourth in the sprint for the bronze medal, meaning a 6th place finish on the day.
"I can’t believe we’ve done that. It was quite a hard race, hard roads, really wet and we were out the back a little bit and just the cornering, you know we were just struggling at times," said Dunlevy. "And then I realised actually on the second lap we did have a puncture, a slow puncture so then I ended up thinking ‘okay it’s not my legs’ it was actually the bike was heavy.
"We came in, we pulled in and we got a change of the wheel on the second lap coming into the third lap and we were then forty seconds back behind the main group. Poland at this stage had gone up the road and then we had to, just when the wheel was on, we just time trialled, a nice steady effort. Every time there was a drag we just pushed on the drag.
"We bridged across to the main group and we attacked. GB tried to close us down and they couldn’t and the gap just got bigger and we just kept pushing, we were so determined we didn’t give up, we kept our heads up and then we bridged across to Poland in the second last lap and attacked them and got a gap and just TT to the line."
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Kelly was also delighted with a second gold medal of the championships: "We used our strengths as time triallers as well and just went for it on the last lap and we were able to enjoy the finish then as well. I said to Katie ‘just celebrate here now, enjoy this moment.’ So, yeah thrilled, second gold this week, delighted."
Grimes, a former world champion, was pleased with his silver medal, especially on such a wet and windy day for racing.
"It was a bit of a brutal race, the weather here a lot like home, very windy, rain all day," he said. "Very aggressive race, it split up early on and then coming into the last lap myself and the French rider got away. So it was the two of us up for the sprint and you know in fairness he’s a very strong rider, very strong sprint and I really have to be happy with second place today.
"I was kind of a bit shocked with how far back I was in the Time Trial a couple of days ago but it just goes to show the standard that everyone I think in that top 10 is capable of winning any of these races on any day and I think to put in a good ride two days later, I’m really happy with that."
Ireland also had four other riders competing at the Para-Cycling Road World Championships today. Earlier this morning, Chris Burns and William Clifford competed in the MC2 and MC4 road races, competing over four laps of the circuit. In what was a tough race for both riders, they each finished 13th encouraging performances for the two riders.
Tandem duo Damien Vereker and Mitchell McLaughlin fought hard in the MB road race to finish in 12th place. A brutal race that took its toll on the pair, with Vereker recovering from a recent illness.
The last Irish rider in action was Richael Timothy competing in the WC3 road race. Timothy had a very strong ride in the lead group for much of the race before her saddled slipped in the penultimate lap - making conditions much more difficult on an already challenging circuit. Timothy did extremely well to stick with lead group despite the circumstances, ultimately finishing in 9th place.
