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Last Updated: 2 Apr 2018 - 8:45:17 PM |
Vereker and Hahessy finish 8th in Paralympic Pursuit
By Cycling Ireland Media
8 Sep 2016,
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| Damien Vereker of Ireland along with his pilot Sean Hahessy during a training session in the Olympic Velodrome ahead of their Pursuit and B Kilo Tandem B in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile |
The Irish tandem of Damien Vereker and Séan Hahessy have finished 8th in the MB Tandem Individual Pursuit at the Paralympic Games in Rio. The new pairing finished in a personal best time and national sea level record of 4.20.139 on the opening day of the Games, and their time had them leading for the opening three heats, and putting them within 6 seconds of competing for bronze. The standard in this event is up a level with the world record being broken twice, first by the Dutch pairing of ter Schure and Fransen and then by GB’s Bate and Duggleby. In the pursuit the top four bikes progress to the medal final, the gold medal will be contested by GB and NED. Spain and the second Dutch bike will battle for the bronze medal.
Speaking after their qualifier Hahessy and Vereker had clearly emptied the tank on the track saying; “The track here is pretty weird, it’s hard to find your groove, and when you’re riding in zone five it’s even harder. We were hoping for a 4.16 but that’s dependent on conditions. 4.20 is pretty quick. We’re not here for PBs or top 10s; we’re here for a medal.”
While Hahessy may have been disappointed with his time, their time bettered the 4.21.359 he rode with stoker Peter Ryan earlier this year at the World Championships in Montichiari, and was 5 seconds faster than the phenomenal performance of James Brown and Damien Shaw at the London Paralympic Games, when they finished in 4th place overall. Ireland currently has no indoor velodrome, so for the Irish team to be competitive on the world stage, bettering the national records each time they compete, it is doubly impressive.
Vereker and Hahessy were first on the track for the Irish, and felt the energy of the crowd; Vereker said; “You could hear a big cheer on the start line and hear it all the way around. You’re trying to block it out and concentrate on lap times.” Hahessy feels the rest of the squad will benefit from the Games getting underway with their performance in the Pursuit saying “That will get a bit of nervous energy out of their system too; we kind of opened the gates for them.”
Next up for the Irish Paracycling Team are the women’s tandem of Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal, who compete tomorrow, Friday 9th September, in the WB Tandem Kilo and Eoghan Clifford and Colin Lynch competing in the Men’s C2 and C3 Individual Pursuit.
Cycling Ireland Website: www.cyclingireland.ie
Paralympics Website: www.paralympics.ie
Eoghan Clifford C3
Katie-George Dunlevy & Eve McCrystal WB
Colin Lynch C2
Declan Slevin H3
Ciara Staunton H2
Damien Vereker & Sean Hahessy MB
Peter Ryan & Marcin Mizgajski MB
About Classification in Paralympic Sport:
Classification is a unique and integral part of Paralympic sport. It provides the structure to separate athletes with similar levels of impairments into groups, or classes as they are commonly known, so they can compete in fair and equal competitions against one another, and ensure that winning is determined by skill, fitness, power, endurance, tactical ability and mental focus. This same principle exists in non-Paralympic sports where athletes are classified according to age, gender or weight divisions to allow for as fair competition as possible.
In para-cycling there are fourteen classifications based on functional disability type. B refers to the tandems, where the stoker is blind or visually impaired, and the pilot is sighted. H represents the handcycling events, and C refers to cyclists on regular, but adapted, solo bikes, who may have cerebral palsy, limb impairments and amputations. In these events the categories have numbers denoting the level of impairment, the lower numbers the more severe the impairments and the higher less so.
For more information on Para-cycling visit:
http://www.uci.ch/para-cycling/about/
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