Cycling: Super Shelly gets Ireland off to a winning start
Monday September 08 2008
Team Ireland hit the ground running after the breathtaking opening ceremony.
The Irish cyclists posted two national records in Beijing's Laoshan Velodrome on the opening day, while Gay Shelly had the honour of being the first Irish athlete into action when he opened his account in his pool of the individual Boccia competition with a 5-2 win over Brock Richardson of Canada.
Bobbie Connolly and Tom Leahy were both beaten in their opening matches, while Padraic Moran produced the result of the day when defeating his British opponent and world No 2 David Smith by a whopping 9-0.
There was little rest for the Irish foursome as they faced into their second pool matches in the afternoon session. Shelly took his best form with him to defeat Ibarbure of Argentina 3-2 (BC1 class) to head into tomorrow's final two pool matches in good shape. Cork's Leahy (BC2 class) lost out 5-1 to Bentley of Great Britain leaving himself with a lot to do if he is to progress to the quarter-finals. Connolly (BC2 class) reversed her morning result to beat Leglice of Argentina 4-3 and Moran (BC1 class) came out the wrong side of a 4-2 result against Marques of Portugal.
First-time Paralympian Enda Smyth from Santry finished seventh in the 3km cycling Individual Pursuit (CP4 class), smashing his own Irish record by 2.674 seconds with a new mark of 3:55.919.
Tandem pair Michael Delaney with sighted pilot rider David Peelo (B & VI 1-3 class) followed, and recorded a 13th place in the 4km Individual Pursuit.
The second Irish record (1:16.208) of the day came from Catherine Walsh with sighted pilot rider Joanna Hickey (B & VI class) in the final of the women's 1km time trial. The duo took 2.318 seconds off their previous best, with Great Britain taking gold in world record time of 1:09.066.
Across the Olympic plaza in the Water Cube, Clontarf's Ellen Keane had to endure unwelcome disruption ahead of her heat of the 100m Butterfly (S9 Class) when the programme was pushed back by over an hour. Despite the distraction the teenager still got to within 0.34seconds of her best ever time in the event, finishing in sixth place. This was, however, not enough to progress the final.
The final Irish competitor on day one was Eimear Breathnach in the individual table tennis event. In her Paralympic debut the Ballinteer native lost out to Pushpasheva of Russia by 3-1.
- Paralympics
