Boylan and Gurley 11th in World Championship Madison

Boylan and Gurley finish 11th at World Championships and help secure Olympic Qualification slots

Lydia Boylan and Lydia Gurley survived a brutal race in the World Championship Women’s Madison 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. 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 average over 50kph.

After the race Lydia Gurley said:

“It was carnage from my point of view anyway.”

“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.”