Katie George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly are world champions after they stormed to gold in the Women’s B Time Trial at the Para-cycling World Championships in Dumfries on Thursday, August 10th.
In a successful day for Ireland at the UCI Cycling World Championships, the tandem duos victory was underlined by several top ten performances – including in the Para-cycling Road and Road World Championships.
But the day belonged to Dunlevy and Kelly as they won their first rainbow jersey as a pairing, with the win an incredible fourth world title for Dunlevy in the time trial and a first for Kelly.
Dunlevy and Kelly finished over one minute ahead of their nearest competitors in a dominant performance. The Irish duo led at the first intermediate time check by 20 seconds, and they further extended their lead throughout to take a comfortable win.
Their time of 37:18.22 saw them finish with +1:01.51 to spare over Great Britain in second place as the pair look forward to Saturday’s road race.
“I’m over the moon,” said Dunlevy. “It was a really hard race, I think I blew a bit halfway, but I just tried to give it my all. Linda did a fantastic job, it’s her first title, I’m delighted for her – she’s put so much hard work in.”
“To come away with another rainbow jersey is unbelievable. Every medal means so much, it’s just that hard work but also to give back to the team behind us.”
“There’s no pressure (in the road race). We’ve got that gold there already, we’re just going to go into the road race and make it a hard race. There’s no pressure, (we’ll) enjoy it and looking forward to it.”
“We knew that the course suited both of us,” added Kelly. “It’s just a course that you would have more momentum on if you select the right gears and take the right lines. I’m absolutely thrilled with my first title.”
