World Cup Medal success for star cycling star Dunlevy

Dunlevy and her pilot Eve McCrystal competed in the UCI Belgium World Cup on May 5-8 and won a Gold in the Time Trial and a Silver in the Road Race.

This was their first World Cup since winning two Gold medals in the Tokyo Paralympics and they were absolutely delighted.The following weekend from May 12 to 16, Dunlevy competed in the UCI German World Cup along with Linda Kelly, this was the first time the pair had competed together internationally and on an extremely technical course they exceeded all expectations and stormed ahead winning with significant time margins in both the time trial and the road race and claimed two Gold medals.

Dunlevy told the Crawley Observer: “This was a perfect start to the season. It was a bit of the unknown in terms of competition, how Eve and I were going to go, and with a new pilot. This was our first race since Tokyo which was 8 months ago and I’ve had to reset to go again aiming to qualify for Paris in 2024.“I was very excited to race again but also nervous which gave me reassurance that my competitiveness was still there. All those long hours on the turbo were worth it and I continue to strive to be the best I can be and the best stoker in the world.

Katie-George Dunlevy and Linda Kelly with their medals

"I’m lucky I’ve a great team of support around me. I look forward to the rest of the season with the big aim of peaking for the Road World Championships in August in Canada. Lots of works still to be done, next up I’ve the European championships in Austria on May 27-29.”

Dunlevy and McCrystal won a gold medal at the time trial B event and silver in the road race at the 2016 Paralympics in Brazil.

In 2021 the pair won a silver medal at the delayed 2020 Summer Paralympics in the individual pursuit event.On the road events a couple of days later they retained their title from Rio in the time trial winning Gold and also won Gold in the road race becoming the most successful Irish female Paralympian.

In December, the Crawley star and McCrystal became the first Paralympians to win the Team of the Year accolade at the Irish equivalent of BBC Sports Personality Awards.