RIO IS A happy hunting ground for Ireland’s Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal as they last night claimed a bronze medal in the Women’s B Tandem 3km Individual Pursuit at the UCI 2018 Para-cycling Track World Championships.
After qualifying for the bronze medal ride off earlier on Friday, the Irish duo — who won Paralympic road cycling gold in Rio — started the 3km race against the clock as favourites, having qualified with a 5-second advantage over New Zealand.
In the medal ride off they bettered their time by 2.5 seconds, clocking 3.34.23 on the line.
Gold went to Great Britain, leaving the Belgians to settle for silver.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” Dunlevy said afterwards. “We really wanted that bronze medal after the ride this morning. We were positive that New Zealand would up their game; we had to as well.”
While the Irish pair had qualified comfortably for the bronze medal final, they were determined to better their performance from earlier in the day.
“We had to be realistic coming into this event after limited track time which was not enough to come in and beat the best — which on the day was the Brits. But we gave it our all,” Dunlevy added.
“After the first ride we went home and spoke to our coach Neill Delahaye, and we made certain adjustments to the bike. We got on it for the second ride; we just did what I would safely say was the best ride that we have done. We are both very proud of ourselves and are delighted to be coming home with the bronze medal.
“We really wanted it. We worked incredibly hard to get that medal, and we are absolutely thrilled.”
Later today, Dunlevy and McCrystal turn their attention to the 1km time trial event.
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