Ireland’s Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal have won their second medal of the Rio Olympics and the team’s 10th following a superb performance in the Women’s B Tandem Road Race at the seaside resort of Pontal.
The Irish pair, who won gold in the Pursuit on Wednesday, led for about three quarters of the race before being passed by the Polish bike of Iwona Powkoscielna and Aleksandra Teclaw, who went to take the gold medal with 59 seconds to spare.
It’s tremendous achievement for the stoker, Dunlevy, and her pilot, McCrystal after their disappointment in the Velodrome. The Irish team has now amassmed four gold medals, four silver and two bronze eclipsing their pre-Games target of eight.
The start was delayed because of a crash in a previous race and the lack of ambulance cover and also foreshortened, although the reason behind the latter was the subject of conjecture. There were unsubstantiated reports that a 48-yeard old Iranian cyclist in the previous race had died of a heart attack in the ambulance, have suffered a head injury in a fall.
The Irish pair were unaware of the circumstances, other than the delay, but it didn’t distract their focus. McCrystal explained: “We are prepared (for these things) working with Steve McIvor (team psychologist) and Neil (Delahaye, cycling coach), we can keep ourselves calm. We just stayed in the shade and kept hydrated.”
The Irish girls jumped into the lead after the first steep climb: McCrystal explained: “It was all together until that steep climb and we just stayed in the front. We had Neil, he had told us to ride the climb at our own pace and what will be will be and our own pace happened to match the best riders.
“We were just with them (Polish tandem). We worked well and stayed with them on the ascent but she just pushed it too much on the descent and pushed it too much for me. We kept fighting but we’ll take silver.”
Dunlevy added: “We’re absolutely exhausted, it was a hard race, probably one of the hardest races I’ve done but we’re ecstatic. We came into with the pressure off us but we both were nervous, we wanted to do well and show what we can do. We love road racing. “
On the issue of celebration, McCarystal was noncommittal: “I don’t know how we’re going to celebrate. It just means so much to us, I know after Eoghan Clifford’s disappointment on Friday this is so important for the team.
“Everyone was so disappointed for Eoghan, including ourselves we couldn’t believe it so for us to come home with a medal today this is for him and the whole team, they’ll be delighted.” And with that she announced she was off to ring her children.
They both admitted that thoughts of Tokyo (2020) could wait for another day, when they had a chance to assess the massive commitment that would be required. For now though, it was about planning a celebration.
Nicole Turner withdrew from the S6 Women’s 100-metre Freestyle due to excessive fatigue. The 14 year old has already swum 10 races at the Games and was pulled from the heats.
James Scully swims later on Saturday night, while Noelle Lenihan will be a contender in the Discus final at the Olympic stadium. Pat Monahan is expected to start the marathon on Sunday having recovered from a urinary tract infection that saw him withdraw from the 800 metres during the week.
In the Men’s Tandem B race Peter Ryan and Marcin Mizgajski finished 12th, while the other Irish bike of Damien Vereker and Sean Hahessy took an early lead and stayed clear for over half the race. They pulled out a lead of over one minute in the opening 15km lap and over the next two laps they extended the lead marginally, with Ryan and Mizgajski comfortable in the main peloton.
The earlier crash shortened the men’s race to just under 100km, with 40km of the race taking part on the flat coast road followed by two laps of a mountainous circuit. A combination of the heat and effort forced the Irish pairing of Hahessy and Vereker to pull over and withdraw. Ryan and Mizgajski came home in 12th place in a race that was won by Holland’s Vincent ter Schure and Timo Fransen.
