Davis nears Olympic qualification

Ireland's leading female triathlete Emma Davis continued her bid for Olympic qualification over the weekend at the ITU World Cup in Madrid with an impressive tenth place finish.

The strong performance by twenty-two year-old Davis, who hails from Bangor in County Down, has risen her to the 47th Olympic spot. There are 55 on offer with only the upcoming World Championships in Canada (June 8th) left to count towards qualification.

Over seven races this season Davis, who is supported under the Irish Sports Council's International Carding Scheme, has performed consistently well to climb into an Olympic qualifying position. Her best result came in the World Cup in Richards Bay, South Africa where she finished ninth.

Davis lined up in Madrid on Sunday, sufficiently recovered from two hard falls off the bike at the European Championships to compete in one of the toughest World Cup fields of the year.

With many of the dominant European countries making selection decisions based on the outcome of this race competition was fierce.

The swim was a rough affair according to Davis:

'The swim was horrible. It was a very, very vicious swim but Madrid is renowned for that as it is only 300m to the first buoy and then it's a very, very tight turn and everyone panics a bit. I got my goggles knocked off so that wasn't much fun.'

Out of the water Davis had a smooth transition to the bike where the lead pack made an early break. Riding well, Davis managed to place herself near the front of the chase pack for the remainder of the 40km test.

With a safe transition to the road in about 12th place Davis had a strong run to cross the line in tenth place and significantly boost her Olympic ranking. The race was won by favourite Venessa Fernandes of Portugal, in what was her 20th World Cup win. Helen Tucker of Great Britain took silver with Daniela Ryf of Switzerland in third.

With only the World Championships in Vancouver on June 8th left to count towards Olympic qualification; Davis is looking forward to the occasion:

'It's actually my first World Champs, so there's been a lot of firsts this year and I'm really looking forward to going out there. It'll be great to have the Irish contingent out there. It was lovely at the Europeans to have a team out and cheering for everyone.'

No Irish triathlete has ever qualified for an Olympic Games so if Emma Davis was to secure qualification for the Games is would be a remarkable achievement, and a wonderful boost for a sport growing in its popularity across the country.