KATIE-GEORGE DUNLEVY and Eve McCrystal have reached this afternoon’s gold-medal final in the Women’s B 3000m Individual Pursuit after an excellent qualifying run at the at the Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome in Paris.
Ireland’s legendary Paralympians posted a second-fastest time of 3:20.481 and will vie for gold at 1:41pm.
Dunlevy and McCrystal will in the final face Britain’s Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl, who broke the world record as the fastest qualifiers with a time of 3:17.643.
The Irish duo will bring to an end their iconic partnership today with at least another Paralympic silver having defied the odds to reach the showpiece.
Pilot McCrystal will retire after these Paris Games and Dunlevy, who has returned to fitness from surgery on a broken collarbone suffered as recently as May at a UCI World Cup event in Maniago, Italy, and who also suffered from a virus on the eve of the Games, is also in the twilight of her cycling career.
With one medal already guaranteed, Dunlevy will also later partner with Linda Kelly when she swaps the track for the road, where she is also a Paralympic champion in the Road Race B.
Pilot Kelly, meanwhile, partnered with Josephine Healion to smash their personal best in the same event as Dunlevy and McCrystal.
Racing against GB’s world-record breakers Unwin and Holl, Healion and Kelly recorded an eight-second PB of 3:27.425 for fifth, narrowly missing out on the fourth-place finish that would have seen them progress to the bronze race.
Earlier, Martin Gordon and pilot Eoin Mullen reached the final of the men’s B 1000m Time Trial.
Gordon and Mullen came home in 1:01.158 to set a new national record and finish as the fifth-fastest qualifiers, with six bikes making it through to the showpiece at 12:51pm.
In the same event, Damien Vereker and pilot Mitchell McLaughlin missed out on the medal race after finishing 10th overall.
“The objective was qualify for the final,” said Gordon. “You can only do your very best out there. It is four laps of pure torture.
“To get a national record, as well, it is a good morning’s work, with a lot to do in the afternoon.”
Gordon’s aim will be to better his fifth-placed finish in Tokyo, but even that will be a tough ask in a stacked field.
“You look at the standard, the time I just did there would have got you a medal in Tokyo. The standard goes up with yourself and everybody else over the years and every Games – qualifying fifth today would have been a medal three years ago.
“Yeah, we want to go faster but all we can do is go out and do what we did this morning, leave everything out there.”
- With reporting from Emma Duffy at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines National Velodrome in Paris.
