{"id":658170,"date":"2026-06-25T21:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/658170\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T21:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:20:13","slug":"lara-gillespie-strikes-for-gold-in-elite-womens-time-trial-debut-at-irish-national-time-trial-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/658170\/","title":{"rendered":"Lara Gillespie strikes for gold in elite women’s time trial debut at Irish National Time Trial Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Track world champion Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) rocketed through all three time splits and landed a decisive victory in the elite women’s time trial at the Irish Road Championships<\/a> on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old averaged 47.6 kph in her victory on the 30.7km course across County Mayo, finishing in 38:38. Linda Kelly, another track star who has world titles and a Paralympic gold as a tandem pilot, repeated with the silver medal, 1 minute and 30 seconds back.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The battle for the final medal played out just six seconds behind Kelly, with Marine Lenehan (Lidl-Trek) one second faster than Mia Griffin (Picnic-PostNL), last year’s road race champion. Dublin native Lenehan earned her second career bronze at the Irish championships, having gone third in the road race last year.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From<\/p>\n

A total of 14 elite women lined up Thursday evening at 19:15 local time for the 30km ITT in County Mayo. The out-and-back affair included a climb on Charlestown Bypass that took riders to the south of Carracastle, rising 2% across 6.4km, then a loop through the centre of Carracastle to take on more rolling terrain in the final 7.7km back toward Swinford.<\/p>\n

Gillespie came into the Irish Road Nationals in solid form, having won Samyn Ladies in March and taking a pair of runner-up finishes in stage races, the UAE Tour Women and the Giro d’Italia Women. She had never competed in the time trial at nationals before, having won Irish titles in the road race three times, once as a junior and twice as an elite.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Her world title came in the Elimination race in 2025, and she became the first Irish woman to become a world champion on the track.<\/p>\n

ResultsSwipe to scroll horizontallyElite women – preliminary<\/p>\n

Pos.<\/p>\n

Rider (Team)<\/p>\n

Time<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ)<\/p>\n

0:38:38.88<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Linda Kelly<\/p>\n

+0:01:30.96<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Marine Lenehan (Lidl – Trek)<\/p>\n

+0:01:36.34<\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

Mia Griffin (Team Picnic PostNL)<\/p>\n

+0:01:37.82<\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

Fiona Mangan (Mayenne Monbana My Pie)<\/p>\n

+0:02:54.76<\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

Aliyah Rafferty (DAS – Hutchinson)<\/p>\n

+0:03:06.08<\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

Sarah Diamond<\/p>\n

+0:03:56.87<\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

Lucy B\u00e9n\u00e9zet Minns (Team F\u00e9minin Chamb\u00e9ry)<\/p>\n

+0:03:59.84<\/p>\n

9<\/p>\n

Esther Wong (Team Farto – Kiroot)<\/p>\n

+0:05:44.54<\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

Emma Jeffers (Liv AlUla Jayco Women’s Continental Team)<\/p>\n

+0:05:55.53<\/p>\n

11<\/p>\n

Laura Daly<\/p>\n

+0:06:06.33<\/p>\n

12<\/p>\n

Shelley Horan<\/p>\n

+0:10:31.62<\/p>\n

13<\/p>\n

Grace Murphy<\/p>\n

+0:11:17.70<\/p>\n

14<\/p>\n

Carolanne Rushe<\/p>\n

+0:15:24.22<\/p>\n

DNS<\/p>\n

Joanne Ni Mhathuna<\/p>\n

DNS<\/p>\n

DNS<\/p>\n

Amelia Tyler (Handsling Alba Development Road Team)<\/p>\n

DNS<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Track world champion Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) rocketed through all three time splits and landed a decisive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-658170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}