O'Loughlin puts himself in frame for Olympic place

CYCLING:DAVID O'LOUGHLIN looks likely to have secured an Olympic slot following an excellent performance on yesterday's opening day of the world track championships in Manchester. The 29-year-old Mayo rider went 4.4 seconds quicker than his national record and beat several established names to finish sixth in the 4,000 metres individual pursuit, a considerable improvement over his 17th place 12 months ago.

O'Loughlin was paired off against world number one Phillip Thuaux (Australia) in the eighth heat and pulled clear of his rival early on, finally clocking a time of 4 minutes 20.91 seconds.

This easily eclipsed the team's own expectations and showed the rapid rate of progress he has shown since clocking four minutes 29.9 in September 2006.

O'Loughlin was lying fourth overall until the final two riders went in the last heat, Jenning Huizenga (Netherlands) and Bradley Wiggins (Britain). Both went quicker with Huizenga pipping the reigning world champion to set the quickest time.

However Wiggins took the gold medal later in the evening, while Alexei Markov (Russian Federation) beat Hayden Roulston (New Zealand) for bronze.

Former world champion and Olympic silver medallist Bradley McGee (Australia) finished just ahead of O'Loughlin in fifth, covering the distance just 0.48 seconds quicker.

As expected, O'Loughlin was satisfied with the result.

"I am delighted to do a personal best and to beat it by a considerable way," he told The Irish Times. "There was only one guy ahead of me today who had been higher than me in the world rankings, so that will help things for the Olympic place.

"The criteria is very confusing and there is some maths to work out, but this result is good.

"I knew I was in good form beforehand but it is hard to know exactly how it will go on the day. I felt strong today and went fast early on, so I knew I was on a good ride.

"Going through the two-kilometre point I was very comfortable and was banging out the laps consistently, and when I saw the other rider ahead of me at the end that was also a boost. The last kilometre always hurts but I had someone to chase."

His rate of improvement is also something which encourages greatly. "I've gone over four seconds quicker than the time I set in the Beijing World Cup but I knew that if I could do that in December, then there was a lot more in me when I built form."

Team manager Frank Campbell was also buoyant. "As we said last year, it is a learning curve. We changed things, we had good coaching help thanks to the assistance of the Sports Council, and we learned by our mistakes.

"David has now proved that he has got it; we always knew deep down he had the engine to do it, but it was a case of getting that engine tuned and getting it to work on the day."

The final line-up for the pursuit race at the Olympic Games will not be confirmed for some time, but a calculation of O'Loughlin's new world rankings plus the likely qualification slots by other countries showed that an Olympic place is now looking very possible. All the more reason to celebrate what was a very encouraging day for Irish cycling.