Martin Ayres
CONG’S David O’Loughlin was among the thousands of athletes who took part in last Friday’s spectacular opening ceremony at the Olympic Games. Sadly, family and friends back home in Cong failed to spot David in the all-too-brief shots of the Ireland team as they entered the Beijing stadium.
After arriving in Beijing last week he soon settled in to the Olympic village, where taking breakfast with 10,000 of athletes proved a novel experience.
O’Loughlin has been training at the Olympic Velodrome in preparation for the individual pursuit event, which gets under way on Friday morning.
Vital statistics
4min 18.52sec
The winning time set by Britain’s Bradley Wiggins in the 2008 World Pursuit Championship held at Manchester. Wiggins defends his Olympic title in Beijing.
4min 20.91
The Irish 4km record set by David O’Loughlin when finishing sixth in this year’s world pursuit championship back in March
€10,000
Estimated cost of David O’Loughlin’s carbon fibre bike, which has been tailor-made for the Games.
9.55am
Scheduled start time (in Ireland) for Friday’s qualifying round of the Olympic pursuit. Both RTE and BBC have included the event in their Games coverage. The medal rides start at 9.30am on Saturday.
19The number of riders, from 13 nations who will contest Friday’s qualifying round for the pursuit.
16 Number of laps to be ridden in the pursuit, which is being held on the 250-metre indoor track at Beijing’s Laoshan velodrome.
13th Ciaran Power’s position in the 2004 Olympic road race - the best performance by an Irish cyclist in the Athens Games.
1996
The last year in which Irish rider qualified for the Olympic pursuit event - Phil Collins was the qualifier and he finished 16th at Atlanta.
