The Irish women’s team pursuit squad has further improved their national record with a strong performance at the world track championships in Roubaix, France, on Thursday evening.
Having qualified fourth-fastest on Wednesday with a time of four minutes 23.095 seconds, the quartet of Mia Griffin, Emily Kay, Kelly Murphy and Alice Sharpe were up against race favourites Germany in the first round proper.
While Germany caught the team towards the end of the 4,000 metre event, the Irish riders persisted to set their fastest-ever time of 4:21.126 seconds.
This was slightly over .07 seconds quicker than the national record of 4:21.202 seconds set at the European track championships in Switzerland on October 6th.
The Irish riders will have mixed feelings about the performance. They will be pleased to have gone faster than ever before, and to have improved on Wednesday’s qualifying time by almost two seconds, but will also be frustrated to narrowly miss out on a place in the bronze-medal final.
Canada recorded the fourth-fastest time with 4:20.191 seconds. Ireland would have had to have gone quicker than that to go up against Britain in Thursday evening’s bronze-medal final.
Germany and Italy will fight it out for gold in the main final.
Aside from the team pursuit, the Irish riders will also compete in two other events this week.
Murphy and Griffin will ride the individual pursuit on Saturday, having finished sixth and eighth in the European championships.
Kay and Sharpe will contest the Madison, also on Saturday, and will hope to improve on their European placing of 13th.
