At the end of the track, there was one last silver lining waiting for Katie-George Dunlevy and pilot Eve McCrystal.
Signing off with a medal was the fairy-tale. Occasionally, it seems, they do in fact come true.
Dunlevy and McCrystal were warming down on their stationary bikes in the middle of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Vélodrome on Sunday midmorning when the giant screens overhead confirmed their time of 3:20.481 had secured them a spot in the gold-medal final later that day. They had made it as the second-fastest qualifier in the B 3,000m individual pursuit. At the very least, they were guaranteed silver.
They both immediately sunk their heads into their hands. Shocked. Thrilled. Overwhelmed. They had dreamt of going out like this, but sport and life had knocked them off the bike enough times for them not to entertain fantasies of such a last dance together.
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But in the mixed zone after the qualifiers, the moment seized the cyclists – McCrystal couldn’t keep her emotions at bay any longer. She tried to wipe her eyes, tried to regain her composure but the tears kept coming. Eventually, she just let them. You want to know what it meant? It meant everything.
“She [Katie-George] has been sick. This morning she woke up and said, ‘I’m not feeling great.’ As a pilot I was like, however s**t I feel as a tandem pairing you have to take each other’s s**t, so to speak,” sobbed McCrystal.
“We’ve always backed each other, if I’m injured or if she’s injured, the other one will always give that 10 per cent extra that you’d never have ordinarily. Today is probably the most nervous I have ever been in my whole entire life.
“It’s just the 10 years, it’s just the kids and work, I’m a single mother, it’s been f***ing hard. I lost my father and it’s just all ... I think I just kept grief and everything in. To retire, I can retire now so f***ing proud.
“I’m so emotional and I’m the f***ing strong one in this relationship, I’m the bitch in this relationship!”
At that moment, one wondered if it would be possible for them to regain focus and deliver a performance in the final just over two hours later. Deliver they did.
“When you’re so close to gold, you’re slightly disappointed you didn’t get it but we’re absolutely ecstatic with silver,” said McCrystal after the decider.
“The staff that we have around us, I just want you to mention them. I just want to say thank you to every single one of them. Without them, we wouldn’t be here today with a medal around our necks.”
The story of Irish cycling has had a fair dusting of Cool Runnings around it over the years, Irish cyclists just rocking up to velodromes across the world, competing and winning medals in big tournaments. Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, it’s pedal time. Having waited forever for a velodrome, two are now promised.
If you have never been to a velodrome, it’s like sitting inside a large sauna, fully dressed, with dance music pumping over the PA system while riders look for the temperature to be ramped up even higher.
Most spectators appeared to come prepared for the sauna saddle showdown in Paris with sleek mini-electric fans, though some debonair locals opted for a traditional brisé fan. They all looked so suave and dignified, and unsweaty.
Meanwhile, the Irish among the 3,350 in the velodrome were marked out by ruddy faces. Every now and then they would exchange exasperated eyerolls with each other, wondering why somebody couldn’t just open a bloody window.
Among the Irish contingent present were McCrystal’s daughters, Ava (16) and Nessa (14).
“From when my kids were born, they have seen me training in the kitchen on turbo trainers, every single day,” added the full-time Dundalk-based garda.
“For all of them to see all of our hard work, that resilience, that determination, for them to see that and then a medal, I can’t put that into words. I am 46 years of age!”
And while they will both race on the road later in these Games, the fact this was the last time Dunlevy and McCrystal would ride together was not lost on those in the arena. They were afforded a standing ovation when they went to meet friends and family at trackside.
“We are in our 40s, and we are up against 20-year-olds. Age is a number,” smiled Dunlevy. “My dad was crying his eyes out. It makes me very grateful to see my parents cry, I don’t see them cry very often.”
And as if winning a silver medal in their last race together wasn’t enough of a prize, the pair reckon the ride to finish second in the qualifiers on Sunday morning was possibly their most complete on track over the last decade.
“That first ride was the best performance we have ever done in our life,” said McCrystal. “It wasn’t a national record, our national record was in hotter conditions on a faster track with a swirl on the track, so as a ride goes that was our best ride.”
It is hard to imagine one without the other, this crew of para cycling trailblazers. They won medals, they changed perceptions, they altered the landscape.
“Six days a week, every single week, for a decade we have trained,” added McCrystal. “We have never ever faltered or taken our foot off the gas. We have committed every single day.”
All the way to the very last one they had in the saddle together.
In the end, Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal got to cycle off on a silver lining.
