Kieran Shannon: Dunlevy and McCrystal — now Irish sport's best double act

Purcell and Stockwell; English and Fox; Kelly and Roche; O’Gara-Stringer or O’Gara-O’Connell – bigger names but hardly better.

Katie George Dunlevy, left, and pilot Eve McCrystal of Ireland celebrate after winning silver in the women's 3000m individual pursuit final on day four of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

In the long history of Irish sport there can’t be a more successful tandem than Dunlevy and McCrystal. Some names that are virtually synonymous with one another may be bigger – Purcell and Stockwell; English and Fox; Kelly and Roche; O’Gara-Stringer or O’Gara-O’Connell – but hardly better. Only O’Donovan-McCarthy, fellow podium winners in Paris this past month, can rival them as a one-two punch from and for Ireland to serially deliver medals.

When on Sunday in their last race together Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal finished second in the Paralympics women’s B 3000 individual pursuit final, it was their 21st time winning a medal at a Paralympics or world championships. Time trials, road races, individual or tandem pursuit, it hasn’t mattered: they’ve persisted, competed, excelled.