Clifford Wins Bronze in Pursuit at Rio
Eoghan Clifford has won a bronze medal in his first Paralympic Games, competing in the Men’s C3 Individual Pursuit in a time of 3.40.201. After qualifying fourth for the bronze medal final earlier today, Clifford faced Michael Sametz from Canada who had recorded a marginally faster time in training. The gold medal was won by Nicholas (AUS) with Berenyi (USA) taking silver.
Despite a niggling knee problem Clifford pulled out a 2.5 second lead on the younger Canadian rider, which he maintained for much of the race. In the closing laps Sametz closed the gap to 1.3 seconds. While it wasn’t his best time, the effort netted the multiple World Champion his first Paralympic medal; “I didn’t really win that because I’ve better legs, I was in agony from the start with my knee and stuff, I won it because I felt I would let so many people down if I didn’t medal today. In training I’ve been very good in the first four laps, but the difference today was whereas normally from my fourth lap to my twelfth lap I don’t drop time, today I was eating time. And actually after four laps in the qualifier I thought I would break the Paralympic record, my legs just weren’t up to it. Great I had a buffer because my legs were in bits.”
There are no riders in action tomorrow; next on the track will be the two tandems on Sunday in the WB Tandem Pursuit and the MB Tandem Kilo.