TEAM Ireland suffered mixed fortunes at day nine of the Paris Paralympics with medals and midtable finishes the order of the day.
Katie George Dunlevy’s medal haul continued today winning silver with pilot, Linda Kelly, in the Women’s B Road Race.
Dunlevy and Kelly missed out on gold to Team GB’s Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl by three seconds
“I wanted to win the gold so I’m a bit disappointed, but a silver medal is amazing,” said Dunlevy.
“It was a tough race, we were up the road with one of the GB bikes and they refused to do the work, so we were just at the front attacking on each hill trying to get away and we just couldn’t get away from them.
“They are sprinters. I think we had nothing left at that stage after giving so much in the hills.
Pilot Linda Kelly, reflecting on a race lost in the final lap, said: “We knew they were behind us and we were like, we were pushing, but then we had to ease off as well because we wanted to conserve our energy.
“We did get in front of them down the technical zone, they were just glued to the back of our wheel. But I’m absolutely over the moon.”
Josephine Healion and pilot Eve McCrystal finished in fourth place in the same race, just over two minutes away from the podium in a time of 02:42:05 marking Josephine’s last race at her debut Paralympic Games.
In the Men’s B Road Race, Damien Vereker & pilot Mitchell McLaughlin placed eighth after a tough race that just always seemed to get away from the pair.
Pilot Mitchell McLaughlin reflected on the tough race, joking “It was hell from the start, it was pretty full on. The French were the first bike to attack during the descent.
“I had a plan to attack pretty early on, but I just didn’t get into the position.
“The climb there, just 3k from the finish, was the hardest on the course by far.
“It was a pretty hard race, and I am cooked but the appetite is there - I’ll be back in LA.”
Paris being Damien’s 2nd Paralympic games, the para cyclist shared his plans for the future, “I have no plans to stop you at the moment, I’ll be back. Cyclists, we’re a weird bunch - the worse it is, the more we want.”
A mechanical in the final lap of the Men’s C4-5 Road Race denied Ronan Grimes a high note on which to end his cycling career.
Grimes had been in 11th place going into the final lap but ultimately dropped to 17th place after two groups passed him by while waiting on a service car.
Speaking after the race, Grimes said: “I’d say the officials were upset with me wanting to finish it, but I really wanted to finish the race. I kept them waiting for a bit longer for me to finish.”
Team Ireland’s dressage team finished in tenth at the Château de Versailles thanks to Michael Murphy, Sarah Slattery and Kate Kerr-Horan, posting a total score of 208.545.
At La Défense Arena, Newtownards’ Barry McClements narrowly missed out on a medal after finishing fifth in the 100m butterfly final.
McClements’ performance in the final saw him shave 0.15 seconds off his lifetime best as he clocked 1:01.24 but it still left him 0.16 seconds behind Australia’s bronze medallist Lewis Bishop.
Also, On the track, Aaron Shorten finished seventh in his Paralympic debut in the Men’s 1500m T20 final at the Stade de France.
He ran a season’s best time of 4:02.71 in the race however was more than 17 seconds off the top spot, which was a new world record set by Great Britain’s Ben Sandilands, who clocked 3:45:40.
In second place was Sandro Baessa of Portugal while rounding off the podium was Michael Brannigan of Team USA.
