Untimely crash costs Louise dearly

UCD Cycling Club Rider of the Year, Louise Moriarty’s dream of Olympic track qualification took a severe dent at the weekend due to a crash that could prove very costly.

Louise Moriarty left Dublin for Ballerup, Copenhagen in mid February in high spirits following two months of sustained competitive racing and high performance training. She had entered two disciplines – the Scratch and the Points race – and was quietly confident of a good show at both in Round 4 of the World Cup track meet. Her goal was to qualify for the World Championships, which in turn would be her gateway to Olympic qualification.

However, she was dealt a cruel blow, when an opponent’s error led her to crashing out of the Scratch race qualifiers. In her own words, Louise says that she had “fantastic legs on Friday in the scratch race qualifier. I had a good position near the front with 200m to go and with 12 to qualify would've gone through easy. Then a French girl crashed right beside me, taking out my back wheel, so I finished on the ground instead of in the final”.

Her crash on Friday also affected her performance in the Points race on Saturday, where she admitted recent good form deserted her: “I stayed positive, as I had to, but the crash obviously took more out of me than I credited it with, as the next day in the points qualifier I just didn't have the legs and didn't make the final”. She finished 20th in heat one of the women’s points race, which was won by Wan Yiu Wong from Hong Kong.

Reflecting on what may have been, Louise said that she felt she “would've gone through to the (Scratch) final easy, and that form should normally have held for Saturday too.”

However, after hitting the deck on Friday and suffering the after-effects the following day, Louise didn’t perform sufficiently in order to qualify for the World Championships, which was a vital stepping stone to her Olympic dream. The UCD rider now faces an almost impossible task to qualify for the track in Beijing.