Eoghan Clifford has won a bronze medal in the C3 3km individual pursuit at the UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.
The Galway-based rider made his track cycling debut at Newport just six weeks ago and qualified as the third-fastest rider in the qualifiers.
In the race for bronze, Clifford faced Russia’s Sergey Ustinov and was pushed hard for the first half of the race before pulling ahead to win by almost two seconds in three minutes 39.724 seconds.
Colin Lynch finished in fourth place in the C2 3km individual pursuit as Arslan Gilmutdinov of Russia claimed bronze.
Both the men's and women's tandem competitors will be in action in the individual pursuit events on Saturday.
Clifford's progress on the track has been remarkable and the rider admitted: “I was first on the track in January, and had my first race in Newport in February, so it’s been a big learning curve, learning how the track works.
“We were hoping for better times, but compared to Newport the times are slower, but probably at the time we underestimated the track, it wasn’t as fast as people thought, as only two went faster than me.
"The support team here has been great, so professional. Like I was disappointed this morning and they really picked me up so I was in great form for the final.”
Lynch was left underwhelmed with his fourth-place finish in the C2 event after recording a sea-level personal best time this morning in the qualifying round.
Lynch said: “This morning I had a good ride and then in the final I did everything to plan - rode as well as could be expected - but the only thing is with the really short turnover in time it didn’t give me enough time to recover.
“I’m disappointed that I couldn’t give the performance I’m usually capable of in the final. Fourth is still fourth in the world, it’s just when your sight is on the podium, it’s that bit more disappointing.”
