Gold and bronze medals for Irish paracycling riders at World Cup

Ireland’s paracycling competitors had a superb start to their Paralympic qualifying campaigns on Friday, with gold and bronze medals secured at the World Cup in Maniago, Italy.

Paralympic gold medallist Katie-George Dunlevy teamed up with Linda Kelly for the tandem time-trial, reprising a partnership which secured them time-trial gold and road race silver in last year’s European Championships. They raced to victory in the time-trial on Friday, 55.35 seconds ahead of the Britons Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl. A second Irish pairing of Josephine Healion and Eve McCrystal finished fourth.

European time-trial champion and world road-race champion Ronan Grimes had a strong start in the Men’s C4 class, finishing third. He was just 15.54 seconds behind the winner Louis Cincke (Belgium) at the end of the 27.2 kilometre time trial, and 11.22 seconds away from the silver medal of Gatien Le Rousseau (France).

Women’s C3 rider Richael Timothy was also in time-trial action on Friday, as were men’s tandem Damien Vereker and Mitchell McLaughlin plus men’s C2 competitor Chris Burns.

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Timothy was fifth in her event, Vereker and McLaughlin were sixth in the tandem time-trial on what was their first occasion competing together, and Burns was 11th.

Declan Sleven was the first rider in action from the team, finishing 21st out of 44 riders in the men’s H3 time-trial on Thursday.

Slevin will compete in the H3 road race on Saturday, with all other competitors contesting their road races on Sunday.

Elsewhere, Ireland’s team pursuit squad finished seventh in round three of the UCI Tissot Track Nations Cup, held in Milton, Canada, on Friday afternoon.

The quartet of Alice Sharpe, Kelly Murphy, Lara Gillespie, Emily Kay had set a time of four minutes 22.405 in Thursday’s qualifiers, placing sixth fastest. They were then paired off against the Australian team in Friday’s first round but, while Ireland went .08 seconds faster than the day before, recording a time of four minutes 22.325 seconds, the Australian team was the one to progress.

It was fourth fastest and will square off against the USA in the bronze medal final later on Friday. Germany will take on Britain for the gold medal. The Irish squad finished seventh overall, some way off their national record of 4 minutes 16.877 seconds.

Kay was due to be back in action late on Friday night Irish time in the elimination race. She will then pair up with Sharpe for the women’s Madison on Saturday, and Gillespie will ride the omnium on Sunday.

Orla Walsh will go in two events over the weekend, the women’s sprint on Saturday and the Keirin on Sunday.