Following in the footsteps of the legendary Bohola-born Martin Sheridan, who won five gold medals in the Olympics at the turn of the 20th century and Ballina’s Deirdre Gallagher ,who competed in the walking event to fly the flag for Mayo at the Olympic games will be Cong’s David O’Loughlin. The south Mayo man jetted out to the games last Monday and with him went the best wishes of the county and the country.
The 30-year-old missed out on being selected for the games in Athens last time out, despite winning the national road race title when the team selectors picked another rider over him and relegated him to first reserve. This time out O’Loughlin qualified for the individual track pursuit event and will be hoping he can bring a medal home to Mayo.
Four km to glory
While most cycling events are long-distance affairs, the pursuit event in which David is competing is a four km race on a curved velodrome circuit 250m in length, he will have to cover 16 laps of the course in as quick a time as possible, with another rider starting off at the same time as him on the opposite side of the track the gap between success and failure in this event is measured in as little as thousanths of a second as the riders maintain a speed of over around 30 miles an hour during the race. David will get his Olympics under way in the Beijing Velodrome on Friday next August 15. In his favour O’Loughlin has already competed on the Beijing track last December in a world cup event there where he came home in second place. Like many top-class Irish athletes O’Loughlin has had to do his training for the event away from home, with no velodrome in the country. However come Friday next all eyes in the county will be on his pursuit of the gold medal.
