2016 Road Nationals Race Report

Date Posted

Jun. 26, 2016

Tags

2016 Canadian Road Championships Alison Jackson Cam Fitzmaurice Cycling BC Team Erin Attwell Jasmin Glaesser Justine Clift Maggie Coles-Lyster Robert Britton Sara Bergen Svein Tuft TAG Cycling Trek Red Truck tristen chernove

This weekend the Road Race kicked off the start of 2016 Junior/Elite/Para National Road Championships in Canada’s capital, Ottawa. Saturday the Juniors, Elite women, and Para took to the 10 km circuit under some sunny skies and hot sun. The Junior men race saw Cam Fitzmaurice from BC take the bronze medal, in the grueling 120 km race (12 laps). Many of the men cramped throughtout the race leaving a rather small pack finishing the complete the 120km race circuit. Tristen Chernove competed in the Para C2 race, which was 50km (5 laps). He spent most of the race working with two other riders until the last lap before breaking away and adding the maple leaf jersey to his colourful jersey collection.

The junior women had one of the most exciting races to date with Callie Swan animating the race, making several moves early on, taking a small lead before getting crashed out at the end of lap 2. With the pack trying to get back together after the crash, Holly Simonson launched an attack that had her with a 50 second lead on the main peloton for 20 km before getting absorbed by the main pack. Several attacks were launched by the main group in an attempt to bridge up to the pack, however, Holly’s teammates were quick to shut those moves down. Holly Simonson had this to say about her break:

At first I was quite surprised that a gap opened at all. In the past I haven’t had this sort of success with my moves, but the timing worked out well this time! Once I knew that the pack wasn’t on my tail I knew I had to give it my all and see how long I could hold it. I was with one other girl for a short while, and then solo for almost 20km. It was pretty fun to be out front, aside from the little bit of suffering. It was also a very cool experience, especially having my own follow motorbike telling me my gap on the group, which, to my surprise, kept growing, as my teammate Erin was covering any attempts to chase me down. I did die off and this resulted in the peloton organizing enough to catch me. Overall I was really happy with my move and also my final placing! And I am happy to think it might have helped a bit in BC taking gold too!

Several moves were made for the remaining 40 km of the race before Erin Attwell managed to get in a move with some Ontario, Alberta, Quebec riders taking them to a sprint finish for the line where Erin took the coveted maple leaf jersey and 2016 Junior National Road Champion title. Erin had this to say about her race:

A few girls attacked going into the finish stretch with one lap to go, I tried to bridge up and noticed that an Alberta rider, Devaney, happened to be on my wheel. Before we knew it we had 18 seconds on the group as a 5 rider group. Once we knew we had this, we decided to push the pace and work together to try and get away. By the time we hit the final hair pin we knew this could be it, and we could be the top 5. From here we kept a close eye on each other to see who was going to make the first move. Ontario launched an attack, however, I’d already started my move and managed to get a few bike lengths ahead into the final corner before the finish line.

In the Elite Women’s race Alison Jackson had a terrific race, with a crash into the feed zone on the first lap, she managed to hop back on and join the group doing her fair share of the work for the 110 km race narrowly missing out on a podium finish with a sprint to the line finishing in 5th. Sundays Elite’s men race was an interesting one where over half of the start list was caught by the break and pulled from the race at the 120km mark. With an 180km race, 18 laps of a 10km circuit, it was a tough one for the main pack to reel in the strong break before being caught.

With 3 medals, and 2 maple leaf jerseys already under our belt, BC has had a terrific start to the 2016 National Road Championships. Next up is the TT on Tuesday. For more information, including start lists and results check out Cycling Canada’s website here.