Kelly Murphy breaks national record at Worlds in Paris

Kelly Murphy broke the individual pursuit national record as Ireland concluded their Track World Championships in Paris on Saturday following a busy day of racing.

Murphy finished seventh in qualifying with the impressive record time, while Orla Walsh raced in the 500m TT event, and duo of Mia Griffin and Alice Sharpe contested the madison final.

Walsh was up first in qualifying and set a time of 34.765 seconds, finishing in 21st place but missing out on a place in the final.

Murphy was next on track as she aimed to improve on her sixth place finish at the European Championships in August, and she set a new national record of 3:25.424 to finish seventh in a strong field, putting almost a full second into her own previous record of 3.26.362.

"I’m satisfied with that ride," said Murphy. "When I started out track racing 3:25 was a really competitive time and I knew that I had the numbers on the road to compete with that. Now the game has changed, and everyone is getting faster and faster.

"It’s a solid time and a solid outing on the day that everyone wants to do a good time, so I’m satisfied to be competitive now and to start chipping away at other things.

"I’m delighted (with the 7th place), because you can use the Team Pursuit as a proxy before you get up to the Individual Pursuit. There were some fast girls there today so just to be in the top half I thought I’d be satisfied; I don’t think I can ask for more than seventh so that’s a solid outing."

In an intense madison final, Alice Sharpe and Mia Griffin battled to a 13th place finish.

Griffin was involved in a small crash just over ten laps after the start as Ireland fought to hang on to the leading group for much of the race.

"It was a pretty ferocious pace, and it wasn’t