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Last Updated: 2 Apr 2018 - 8:45:17 PM |
New Team Pursuit Record Set Today
By Shane Stokes (& CI press release)
17 Jan 2009,
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Irish Team Pursuit squad break National Record to rise to new level
Day 2: Report by Geoff Liffey, Cycling Ireland.
The Irish Team pursuit squad took to the track this morning on day two of the Beijing World Cup and continued to perform to the high standard set by team member David O’Loughlin the previous evening. Finishing in an Irish record time of 4.13.9 the team claimed 7th place overall and were only 2secs off the time needed to go through for a ride-off for the medals. This was a phenomenal performance made all the more creditable by finishing within 2 seconds of the Olympic silver medallists, Denmark and just over 10 seconds behind eventual winners New Zealand, who claimed bronze Olympic bronze. This is by far the best performance by the Elite Team pursuit squad who comfortably finished higher than mid-table amongst the world’s best.
The squad, made up of Paul Healion, Martyn Irvine, David McCann and David O’Loughlin rode in the second heat of fifteen, and although content with their ride and their step-up into the higher echelon of the most prestigious team event, were left wandering what could have been as many of passing Nations failed to beat the Irish time.
Sean Downey narrowly missed out in qualifying for the Scratch race finals by finishing 11th again. Sean rode very well and looked even more comfortable than yesterday but was edged out in the final sprint. This has been a good campaign for the Irish squad and a step up in level here has been apparent and commented on by all present at The World Cup event.
Both coach, Tommy Evans and manager, Brian Nugent, were extremely happy with the progress and are looking towards the next round of the World Cup in Copenhagen in four weeks time, ‘Copenhagen will be another opportunity for us to show the progression that the National Programme’s have made. It was important that we got the new programme and Olympic cycle off to a good start and we done that convincingly but this squad has much more to come and we can go quicker. Confidence is high and we have a camp in a few weeks time were we will focus on areas where we can improve to aid that progression.’
Paul Healion will ride in the Kilometre TT final later tonight to finish of proceedings for the successful Irish Team.
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O’LOUGHLIN THIRD IN WORLD CUP PURSUIT (Jan 16)
David O’Loughlin took an excellent third place in today’s individual pursuit at the Beijing track world cup, beating Volodymyr Diudia (ISD-Sport Donetsk) for the bronze medal position. It was the first Irish Elite medal at a world level for over a decade.
The Mayo rider was third quickest in the qualifying round, posting a 4 minute 27.563 ride. This was almost ten seconds off the scorching 4 minutes 17.962 clocked by Jesse Sergent (New Zealand), but just 0.386 away from the time set by the second-placed rider, Vitaliy Shchedov (Ukraine).
O’Loughlin and Diudia were only a hair apart in the qualifiers, with the Irishman pipping the Ukrainian’s time by just .386 seconds. Both squared up in the ride-offs for bronze, with O’Loughlin going quickest with a time of 4 minutes 28.294 seconds. Diudia clocked 4 minutes 28.544. As expected, Sergent won the event outright.
While O’Loughlin did not get close to the national record of 4 minutes 20.91 seconds he set in the qualifiers at last year’s world championships in Manchester – where he finished an excellent sixth – today’s result will be a big morale boost to him in advance of the remaining two big events on the 2008/2009 track calendar, namely the fifth round of the world cup in Copenhagen and the world track championships in Poland.
Before then, he, Martyn Irvine, Paul Healion and David McCann will compete in the team pursuit tomorrow. Paul Healion will do the one kilometre time trial, while Sean Downey will ride the scratch race. The latter competed in the points race today but did not make it through to the finals, missing out on countback.
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Track World Cup round 4, Beijing
January 16th – 18th:
4000m individual pursuit final
For gold:
1, Jesse Sergent (NZl) New Zealand
2, Vitaliy Shchedov (Ukr) Ukraine
For bronze:
3, David O'Loughlin (Ireland) 4.28.294
4, Volodymyr Diudia (ISD-Sport Donetsk) 4.28.544
4000m individual pursuit qualification:
1, Jesse Sergent (New Zealand) 4.17.962 (55.822 km/h)
2, Vitaliy Shchedov (Ukraine) 4.27.177
3, David O'Loughlin (Ireland) 4.27.563
4, Volodymyr Diudia (ISD-Sport Donetsk) 4.29.534
5, Valery Kaykov (Lokomotiv) 4.30.014
6, Rohan Dennis Toshiba 4.30.104
(16 starters)
O’LOUGHLIN WINS BRONZE IN EPIC FINAL (Cycling Ireland press release)
The first day of competition in the Beijing World Cup saw David O Loughlin make a return to the Olympic Velodrome in the 4km Individual pursuit in style. In what could only be described as a thriller, O’Loughlin stayed ahead throughout to secure bronze by the narrowest of margins finishing less then two tenths of a second ahead of his Ukrainian rival while both were almost equal with 125metres remaining.
David performed well and rode solidly in the morning qualifiers to finish a fine 3rd in a time of 4.27.56 and earn the chance to ride-off for the bronze medal in the evening finals. He narrowly missed out on a ride-off for Gold by less than half a second but made the most of the opportunity to secure Ireland’s first Elite medal at World level in over a decade and the first of the new programme aiming for 2012.
This will serve as both inspiration and evidence that the goal for London 2012 is off to a great start. David was in jubilant form saying that ‘it has been worth all the effort over the past few years and I am delighted to finally step on the podium for Ireland after coming so close in the past.’ He went on to express his gratitude for the support and backing of Cycling Ireland, the Irish Institute of sport and the Irish Sports Council’.
Team coach Tommy Evans was delighted with David’s performance ‘David has been in good form all week leading up to this and put in a gutsy performance over the closing kilometre, when he needed to most. We’re delighted with the result’.
Speaking afterwards, Team manager Brian Nugent summed up the performance, ‘David rode extremely well and battled hard out there to take the bronze medal. That was one of the most exciting pursuits that I’ve seen in a long time and he certainly had myself and the rest of the support staff sweating a bit towards the end. But this has come as a result of a lot of hard work by David and the rest of the team over the last few years after a change in emphasis from road to track. This is a great result, not only for David but the team as a whole and has created a great start to the 2012 Track programme. There will be more to come and we’re looking forward to the team pursuit tomorrow’
18 year-old Sean Downey, in his first World Cup event, rode very well in the Points qualifiers only missing out on the final on count back after winning a sprint to pick up 5points. Sean will ride in the Scratch race tomorrow morning where he will be gunning to make the final. This is Sean’s first year as a senior rider moving straight from the Junior National squad to the Elite squad as part of the 2012 programme.
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