Ireland Smash Women’s Team Pursuit National Record at Paris

Ireland Smash Women’s Team Pursuit National Record at Paris 

It was a historic moment for Irish cycling this afternoon as the team of Lara Gillespie, Alice Sharpe, Kelly Murphy and Mia Griffin took to the track for the qualifying round in the Women’s Team Pursuit at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

The team secured qualification when ranked in the top ten teams in the world at the close of the qualification window earlier this year, making them the first ever Irish women’s track cycling team to qualify for the Olympics, an incredible achievement in itself. 

Today, Ireland were the second team to ride in the qualifying round, completing 4km at the Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome. Japan opened the competition with an impressive time of 4:13:818. 

Ireland sat marginally behind Japan as their qualifying round progressed. Griffin dropped off as planned, and Murphy, Gillespie and Sharpe dug deep. Some excellent turns from Murphy helped bring Ireland ahead of Japan to finish on 4:12:447, setting a new Irish national record.* 

Today’s time knocked an impressive 3 seconds off the previous national record set by the same team at the final round of the Tissot UCI Nations Cup of 4:15.697.

Host nation France were third to take to the track, posting an excellent time of 4:08.797. Canada were next and despite confusion over timing, they finished narrowly ahead of Ireland on 4:12:205. 

Despite the record breaking performance, Ireland ultimately finished in ninth place, with the top eight teams qualifying. 

Spirits remained high afterwards, Murphy reflected on the performance, saying:

“This has been the culmination of two years of really hard work. To come to the world’s biggest race and do a big PB is something we’ve been dreaming of and to actually make it a reality today is a real joy, I still can’t quite believe it. I’m really proud of us.”

Alice Sharpe commented: 

“Our goal was to come and do a PB and race our own race, to see where we are amongst the field, and we definitely put in a performance that we’re proud of.”

On becoming an Olympian, Lara Gillespie said: 

“It’s so cool. The atmosphere is absolutely amazing, it’s what we’ve been all working so hard for and it’s really special to be here with these girls.”

Mia Griffin added:

“We punch above our weight for a small nation but we’re a close knit group of girls and I think we put on a display today that we can be so proud of. I’m so happy we put on this performance and know we left everything on the track.” ‎

High Performance Director with Cycling Ireland Iain Dyer echoed similar sentiments: 

“I’m very proud to see such a great execution from the team. A three second improvement on the National Record we set earlier in the year in Hong Kong is a paradigm shift. We left it all out there and can’t ask for more. We’ll look forward now to the Madison and Omnium to come later in the week.”

Track cycling events got underway yesterday and will continue until Sunday, 11th of August. On Friday, Sharpe and Gillespie will ride in the Madison and on Sunday Gillespie will contest the Omnium. 

*All national records are subject to ratification by Cycling Ireland.