IRELAND SMASHED THE national record on their Olympic debut in Women’s Team Pursuit, but didn’t progress from the qualifying round at the Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome.
Mia Griffin, Lara Gillespie, Kelly Murphy, and Alice Sharpe made history as the first Irish quartet to feature in this track cycling event at the Games.
They clocked a time of 4:12.447 — surpassing the previous Irish record of 4:15.697 they set at the UCI Tissot Nations Cup Hong Kong in March — as they finished ninth.
They narrowly missed out on the top eight, with Canada squeezing in in 4:12.205.
New Zealand qualified fastest in a sizzling time of 4:04.679, just outside the world record set by defending champions Germany at Tokyo 2020 (4:04.242). The Germans finished outside the top four, and the best they can now hope for is bronze:
In Team Pursuit, each team of four riders does a 16-lap — or 4,000m — time trial to create seedings for heads-to-heads.
Only the top eight — of 10 — progress from the qualifying stage, and following that, just the two fastest teams compete for gold and silver, with the next two fastest competing for bronze, and similarly for fifth to eighth places.
This was an incredibly quick qualifying round, with Ireland impressing on their debut.
Griffin led the quartet off amidst a bright start, but like others, did not finish on the main track. This was a scheduled strategy: she peeled off at 2250m, with the clock focusing on the third rider. Gillespe, Sharpe and Murphy finished strongly, with the latter producing a series of good turns as they powered home.
Ireland raced second, and leapfrogged Japan (4:13.818) on the leaderboard but both were overcome by the big guns and ultimately bowed out.
