Canada wins gold in men’s and women’s team sprint at 2015 Pan Am Games

Canada opened the first day of Pan Am Games track cycling events with two gold medals. Both the men’s and women’s squads for the team sprint events stood on the top steps of their respective podiums.

While the qualifiers for the women’s team sprint were first in the morning session, it was the men who had the first medal round.  The Canadian team of Evan Carey, Joseph Veloce and Hugo Barrette faced off against Hersony Canelon Vera,  Cesar Marcano Sanchez and Angel Pulgar Araujo  of Venezuela. The Canadians got off to a rocky start, with a false start for Carey. After some time was taken to examine Carey’s bike, everyone lined up and had a clean start. For the first two laps, the Venezuelans lead the Canadians. With just Barrette left in the final drive to the line, the rider crossed the finish giving his team a time of 44.241, for gold.

“It feels great. To win at home, in front of a Canadian crowd, that’s phenomenal,” Veloce said. “It’s different; we’re not used to it. We’re used to being in Europe where they’re all cheering for their own teams, but to have this crowd: it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us.”

For Carey, it took a bit of time for the win to sink in. “I’m still trying to compute what just happened,” he said. “To realize we just won a gold medal at the Toronto Pan Am Games is pretty spectacular. We really didn’t know where we stood. We qualified first this morning by a decent margin in team sprint. The beauty of this race is everybody goes out as hard as we possibly can and that leaves looking at the scoreboard afterwards. Nobody knows where they are going to land.”

After the race, Barrette spoke about the significance the velodrome in which the event was held, the new facility in Milton, Ont. “Until [the 2016 Olympics in] Rio , I’m based down here,” he said. “I’ve been based down here for four months now and it’s just an amazing facility. The velodrome is quite amazing. Every international rider talks about it. The whole facility and how the community supports us has been amazing. We see the fruit of that today.”

For the bronze medal, Brazil beat out Colombia.

In the women’s team sprint qualifier earlier in the day, the Canadian duo of Monique Sullivan and Kate O’Brien set a new Pan Am record of 33.584, knocking out the previous mark set by Venezuela during the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico: 33.611. While Sullivan and O’Brien weren’t able to top that time in the gold medal race, their 33.959 beat Cuba’s (Lisandra Guerra and Marlies Mejias) 34.813. Colombia took bronze over Mexico.

Other races on Thursday evening include, the women’s team pursuit heats that would determine the squads that would race for medals on Friday. Both Canada and the U.S. caught the respective squads that they raced against (Cuba and Mexico). Canada and the U.S. will face off for gold. Mexico and Colombia will ride for bronze.

The day wrapped up with the elimination race of the men’s omnium. Brazil’s Gideoni Rodrigues Monteiro crashed early in the race. The fall was deemed a mishap so the race was neutralized so Rodrigues could rejoin. Canada’s Remi Pelletier-Roy was eliminated fairly early in the race. He came in to this round of the omninum placed second overall after winning the morning’s individual pursuit. His result in the elimination race knocked him down to third. Fernando Gaviria Rendon of Colombia won the event. Rodrigues, whose raced with his upper right leg and hip exposed, his kit torn from his fall, finished second.