Team Canada had a bittersweet morning session on the second day of competition at the Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Milton, on Friday. Both the women’s and men’s Team Pursuit squads finished fifth, each missing the medal round by three-tenths of a second. The men’s squad broke the Canadian national record less than 24 hours after previously setting a new mark.
The women’s squad of Ariane Bonhomme, Annie Foreman-Mackey, Kinley Gibson and Steph Roorda set a time of four minutes and 20.855 seconds, nearly three seconds faster than the time they set in qualifying the previous evening, but were 0.304 seconds out of the medal qualifying time.
In the men’s competition, the Canadian lineup of Aidan Caves, Michael Foley, Derek Gee and Jay Lamoureux set a time of three minutes and 56.352 seconds, 0.579 seconds faster than the record they set the evening before. Unfortunately, that was approximately six-tenths of a second slower than Great Britain who took the final spot for the medal round.
“It’s hard to miss the medal round by such a slim margin,” said Lamoureux, “but we set another Canadian record, so I think everyone’s pretty happy. With the coaching change, we are working on the more technical aspects and being faster in the last kilometre, and I think it’s helped us go a lot faster.”
In the women’s Team Sprint qualifying, the Canadian duo of Amelia Walsh and Lauriane Genest set a time of 34.110 seconds for 12th place. They finished 1.417 seconds behind top qualifier Australia. In the Scratch Race, Evan Burtnik, riding for the NextGen development team Medal 2 the Medal, was fifth, while Allison Beveridge of Team Canada was also fifth in the women’s race.
Burtnik was aggressive in the early half of the race, attacking in a breakaway before being reeled in. He was part of a group caught by lone breakaway leader Vitaliy Hryniv of the Ukraine, and sprinted to fifth place in the group one lap down on Hryniv, the winner. In the women’s race, Beveridge took a cautious role, making sure she was always in position near the other top riders. A late break by two riders was not chased down, with Alexandra Goncharova of Russia taking a solo victory. Beveridge was third in the bunch sprint for the final podium spot.
“I was trying to use this race as a warm up for the first two races of the Omnium,” said Beveridge. “It was a bit of an activation race for me, to see how training was going and get a race under my belt.”
About Cycling Canada
Cycling Canada is the governing body for competitive cycling in Canada. With the vision of becoming a leading competitive cycling nation, Cycling Canada manages the High Performance team, hosts national and international events and administers programs to promote and grow cycling across the country. Cycling Canada programs are made possible through the support of its valued corporate partners – Global Relay, Lexus Canada, Mattamy Homes, Louis Garneau, lululemon, 4iiii, Argon18 and Bear Mountain Resort – along with the Government of Canada, Own The Podium, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.