Ireland’s Katie George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal have added a silver medal to the gold that they won in the Time Trial last Wednesday by finishing in second place in the Women’s B Tandem Road Race in Rio. Poland’s Iwona Podkoscielna and Aleksandra Teclaw got gold in the women’s race with New Zealand’s Emma Foy and Laura Thompson Laura winning bronze.
The composed duo of Dunlevy and McCrystal were towards the front of the race for the majority of the mountainous course to win Ireland’s fifth cycling medal at the Paralympic Games. The planned 90-kilometre race was cut to 75 kilometres following a delayed start due to a crash in an earlier race, in which Iranian paracyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad unfortunately lost his life.
Speaking after winning their silver medal the Irish women were delighted with their result describing a tough race: “It was a really, really hard race, one of the hardest I’ve done. We came into it with the pressure off us but we wanted to win it, we wanted to do well in it.” The delayed race did not faze Dunlevy and McCrystal who said “There was no impact really; it was delayed for everyone so we just kept drinking.”
The shortened race was a tough one and McCrystal said” “It was altogether until the steep climb, we stayed to the front. Neil (Delahaye) told us to ride the climb at our pace. We are not the kind of bike that will respond to attack and repeat attack on the hill, and our own pace happened to match the best climbers. We were just with them – there was a break up the hill, break behind us.”
“We worked well stayed with the Poles on the steep climb, but on the descent she just pushed it too much for us. She’s raced with us enough so she knew if she pushed she’d get a back. We kept fighting the whole way, we’ll take silver.”
This brings to a close Irish cycling action at the Paralympic Games in what was a very successful Games for Ireland. Ireland won two Paralympic titles, two silver medals and a bronze, matching the medal tally from London 2012.
great photo “in unison”