Battling Results Conclude Successful Paracycling Road World Cup Round Two

Team Ireland completed their successful campaign at the second round of the UCI Paracycling Road World Cup with more battling performances in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland today.

Colin Lynch followed up Sunday’s MC2 Time Trial gold medal with a hard fought 10^th place finish over three laps of the hilly 14.53km road race circuit, a race won by Israel Hilario Rimas of Peru.

The final race of the three-day featured Ireland’s Women’s B tandem pairing of Katie-George Dunlevy and her sighted pilot Fiona Guihen with Dunlevy showing no ill effects of her road race crash at round one in Italy last week to finish ninth.

The 72.65km race won by Polish duo Iwona Podkoscielna and her pilot Aleksandra Wnuczek included a total of ten demanding climbs.

Reflecting on another hugely successful outing at world cup level during which Team Ireland won three medals, two of them gold, team coach Neill Delahaye paid tribute to the efforts of his squad throughout the event.

"The rain today for our final day of racing finally eased off but the racing itself was relentless once again. The hilly parcours today did not lend itself to Colin's strengths so we knew his race would be a tough one and so it proved with the climbing specialists active from the start and the race fragmenting early on.

"It was a strong individual performance to finish in the top 10 on the day and certainly reflective of the determination and sheer effort Colin put into the race.  

"Katie and Fiona left it all out there. It was a long and brutal race for the female tandems today and the girls committed fully and worked very hard bringing our campaign to an end.  

"The standard is increasing all the time and we are expecting the racing to continue to ramp up in intensity as the World Championships approach and Rio starts to come into sharper focus."

For full results from all races at round two of the UCI Paracycling Road Word Cup in Yverdon –les-Bains see http://www.uci.ch/para-cycling/ucievents/2015-para-cycling-uci-para-cycling-world-cup/374847015/widgets/start-lists-results-standings/

 
Irish Team for 2015 UCI Para-Cycling Road World Cup Round Two
 
Mark Rohan, MH2 Time Trial, MH1 Road Race, from Ballinahown, Co. Westmeath
Colin Lynch, MC2 Time Trial, MC2 Road Race, from Cheshire in England
James Brown & Bryan McCrystal, MB Time Trial, MB Road Race, Brown from Stonehouse in England, McCrystal from Dundalk, Co. Louth
Katie-George Dunlevy & Fiona Guihen, WB Time Trial, WB Road Race, Dunlevy from Maidenhead in England, Guihen from Navan, Co. Meath
Eoghan Clifford, MC3 Time Trial, MC3 Road Race, from Galway Bay CC, Co. Galway
 
Coach
Neill Delahaye
Manager
Tommy McGowan
Mechanic
Gerry Beggs

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 and also 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/