Cycling Canada has selected a small but powerful team of four riders for the UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on March 22-25. Canada won seven medals, four gold and three silver, at the 2017 world championships.
The team will include the three athletes who won medals last year; men’s C2 category rider Tristen Chernove of Cranbrook, BC, men’s C1 athlete Ross Wilson of Edmonton, Alberta, and women’s C4 rider Marie-Claude Molnar of St-Hubert, Quebec. Joining them will be NextGen athlete Keely Shaw of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who will be classified prior to competition.
Chernove and Ross will each be defending their two world titles in the 1000m Time Trial and Individual Pursuit. Molnar won three silver medals at the 2017 world championships, in the 500m Time Trial, Individual Pursuit and Scratch Race. Chernove won silver and bronze medals and Wilson won a silver medal on this same track at the Rio Paralympic Games.
“The Para team is looking forward to going back to the Rio velodrome, where our team lived great experiences at the Paralympics in 2016,” said Sebastien Travers, Para-cycling Head Coach at Cycling Canada. “We are going to these championships to try to maintain our world champion titles, but we are also looking forward to gathering UCI points, as this is the first event on the track to qualify for the Tokyo Paralympics.”
“Our team is looking very good with some of our veterans, but we are also seizing the opportunity to get up-and-coming athletes a first exposure to international classification.”
Cycling Canada is the governing body for competitive cycling in Canada. Founded in 1882, Cycling Canada aims to create and sustain an effective system that develops talented Canadian cyclists to achieve Olympic, Paralympic, and World Championship medal performances. With the vision of being a leading competitive cycling nation by 2020 celebrating enhanced international success, increased national participation and world class event hosting, 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 and Bear Mountain Resort – along with the Government of Canada, Own The Podium, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.