Irish national track coach Dan Henchy believes that Ireland are growing in confidence after breaking the women’s team pursuit national record for the third time this month.
he team of Mia Griffin, Lara Gillespie, Alice Sharpe and Kelly Murphy smashed their national record today with a time of 4.16.877 at the UCI Nations Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia.
It comes less than 24 hours after the same quartet put over two seconds into their previous best, which was an improvement on their the previous record set two weeks ago at the UEC European Championships.
The forward strides have seen Ireland close the gap with some of the world’s top nations on the track as they secured a fifth-place finish in Jakarta, following on from their fifth place at the Europeans, which marked the start of the qualifying process for next year’s Olympic Games. Australia, who finished fourth fastest in today’s first round were less than a second quicker than the Irish quartet.
“It was important for the women’s team pursuit to start Olympic qualification strongly and fifth place at UEC European Championships was a solid result,” said Henchy. “The first round of the UCI Tissot Track Nations Cup series in Jakarta was a quick turnaround, so to take a decent chunk of time off the national record and bag another fifth place is just the start we were planning for.
“There’s still a lot of work to do over the next year to secure a spot in the Paris Games but the gap to the top nations is closing and we’re learning a lot and growing in confidence with every ride.”
