Info and photos from the social media pages of Cycling Ireland
Richael Timothy smashes her PB to finish 9th in the C1-3 3000 meter Individual Pursuit.
That was a quality performance and will give Richael great confidence for the rest of her campaign
Personal Best for Ronan Grimes in the 1000m TT
His PB time of 1:08.262 was a second and a half faster than his previous best of 1:09.438. Ronan said that the kilo, which is his weakest event, was a good introduction to the competition here in Shizuoka. “I feel good after that. I’m never going to do well in a kilo, in a combined C4 and C5 category, but for me, that was a good ride – it was a second off my PB from before,” he said. Ronan also felt that getting the first day of competition out of the way sets him up for the next few days of racing.“This gets the nerves out of the way, it is good to get to feel the track under-speed, it gives me good confidence for tomorrow. Our preparations have been great. We’ve been away for a good while in Majorca, Portugal, and here in Japan in Masuda. It has been fantastic, everyone is fully committed, we won’t be any fitter than we are already. We are ready to show that fitness,” he explained.
Katie George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal have set a new personal best time and national record in their first Paralympics event on the track.
Irish Record was broken: 1:09.044 – riding at an average speed of 52.1km/hr. Katie said: ” I’m really happy with our race, really happy with our result because we got a personal best by 1.3 seconds. We’re just delighted with the race. We couldn’t have done any more, a PB is fantastic. Eve said the event was an introduction to the track and is looking forward to the weekend. “Today was a nerve settler for us. It was really good to have it before the three-kilometer event so that we could go through the warm-up, procedure. We went nearly one and a half seconds faster, I think it is the new national record and that’s all you can do on the day is going faster than you’ve gone before and I think it shows that we’ve form hopefully it will carry through to the next three events,” Eve said. Katie said they are now focusing on Saturday’s events as they target another best.
“Got the pursuit coming up on Saturday and that is the one we are targeting. It is the endurance event and we have medalled in that in the past – that’s what we are aiming for. We are really looking forward to getting going now at this stage. We know what we are doing, we have a plan and it is about executing that plan on the day and seeing where we come. Hopefully, we’ll get the podium – we’ll give it our best,” she added and told her well-wishers “Thank you for all the messages, for our family and friends, all the people at home, and everyone in the cycling community for all the messages. We just want to say thank you for all the support,” she added.
Next races >>> Friday, 27th August: Women’s C1-C3 500m Time Trial: Richael Timothy, 2:00 am to 2:39 am
Men’s C4 4000m Individual Pursuit Qualifying: Ronan Grimes, 2:39 am to 3:14 am
Saturday, 28th August: Women’s B 3km Individual Pursuit Qualifying: Katie-George Dunlevy & Eve McCrystal, 2:00 am to 2:45 am & Men’s B 1km Time Trial: Martin Gordon & Eamonn Byrne, 3:21 am to 4:09 am
