Irish women move step closer to Tokyo qualification

Day four of the Track World Championships proved the most successful of the week for Team Ireland as the pairing of Lydia Boylan and Lydia Gurley secured the required points to secure Olympic qualification.

The duo of Lydia Boylan and Lydia Gurley survived a brutal race in the World Championship Women’s Madison event to finish 11th.

The result has added to Ireland’s points tally throughout the qualification period and provisionally qualifies two slots in the Women’s Madison and one slot in the Women’s Omnium at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Boylan and Gurley scored two points from an intermediate sprint in the early stages of the 30-kilometer race but one of many crashes during the race saw Boylan hit the deck.

Lydia Boylan

Thankfully she was not seriously injured and was able to re-join the race on a spare bike. Gurley was forced to extend her effort as she waited for Boylan to re-join the race and provide some relief as they averaged over 50kph.

Gurley said that although it was far from their best performance, it was crucial that they got points on the board.

“I think it wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done and that was the most important thing today. We would have liked a better result, but we took the points and we fought, we really had to fight there.”

“I’m in bits but we’ve done it so I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved today.”she added.

Tomorrow will be the final day of the championships and and will see Alice Sharpe in action in the Women’s Points Race and Mark Downey and Felix English in the Men’s Madison event.