Beijing Track Cycling World Cup

Martyn Irvine wins the individual pursuit, and climbs to overall standing of 10th place in the Omnium, Felix English performs well in Points Final and Jennifer O Reilly misses final in the qualification for the Women's Omnium.

In the third round of the Track World Cup Series, the Irish team performed strongly, with Irvine accumulating valuable points towards Olympic Qualification in the Men's Omnium.

The Omnium is a new event in the Olympics, and involves the rider competing in six events, following a qualification point's race. While O Reilly was unlucky to miss qualification in the women's event, Irvine displayed continuous improvement throughout the men's event, resulting in an encouraging overall tenth place. 26 year old Irvine impressed the field by producing the fastest time in the individual pursuit in the Omnium on Saturday. The time trial specialist powered through the 4km event in a time of 4min 28, and later produced the sixth fastest time in the 1km time trial, leading to his strong overall result.

English, in his debut year at a senior level raced strongly in the Points race, qualifying for the final in a highly contested event, coming home in 20th position, demonstrating huge potential for the future.

Earlier in the competition the women's team pursuit raced strongly in their event, and finished the 3km team time trial in a time of 3.37min. While the women's team produced a faster time in the second World Cup in Cali, this team overcame several obstacles in the lead up to the World Cup, with Caroline Ryan racing with a broken wrist and Siobhan Horgan racing on the track for the first time. The trio of Ryan, Horgan and O Reilly, started strongly with an opening lap of 22.83 seconds, and eventually finished in 15th place, several seconds off their national record of 3.31.7min.

The next round of the World Cup series takes place in Manchester on the 18-20 February.