Cycling Canada announces 2017’s national competition calendar
The season will feature the country's best riders in road, para, BMX, track, mountain bike and cyclocross disciplines
Cycling Canada has announced the release of its 2017 national calendar, covering each cycling discipline—road, track, cyclocross, mountain bike, para and BMX.
Officials with the national cycling body describe the calendar as the next step in a tradition of Canadian excellence.
“We are pleased to release the 2017 Cycling Canada calendar,” said Mathieu Boucher, the organization’s director performance development. “Once again, our athletes will benefit from a variety of high-level events from across all cycling disciplines.”
“We want to thank all of our organizers and the host cities for enabling us to provide events to support the growth and development of our athletes,” Boucher added.
Canadian track events kick off in February with the Eastern and Western Track Challenges, competitions that lead up to the under-17/junior/para national championships in March. Dates of competition for elites and masters and UCI World Cup events, meanwhile, have yet to be announced.
On the west side of the country, the Bear Mountain Canada Cup XCO event gets Canada’s mountain bike calendar rolling for the second consecutive year in 2017. Downhill and cross country events will feature the terrain of Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia throughout the season. DH nationals will be in Invermere, B.C., on July 17. The mountain bike marathon championships will be in East Hereford, Que., on the same day as the gravity riders will be competing for maple leaf jerseys. The cross country national championships will be in Canmore, Alta., on July 22. The Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup will host XCO and downhill athletes for the 26th time.
Quebec is also the backdrop for the launch of the 2017 Canadian road season, which gets underway with the Chrono de Gatineau and Grand Prix Cycliste Gatineau, both in Gatineau, Que. June will see the GP Cycliste de Saguenay, the Tour de Beauce and the Grey County Road Race, before the road national championships hit the asphalt of Gatineau for elite, junior and para riders. Vancouver will host national championships for masters athletes.
July sees Canadian and international road riders competing BC Superweek and the Tour de l’Abitibi, part of Coupe des Nations Junior. August and early September brings two gilded highlights of the national road season: the Tour of Alberta and the Grand Prix Cyclistes de Québec and de Montréal.
For the BMXers, the BMX Canada Cup hits courses throughout British Columbia in May, Ontario in July and Alberta in late August. Finally, Canuck BMXers wrap up their season with the national championships, before late August also sees the final round of the Canada Cup get underway. Canadian para athletes, track nationals are in March, road nationals are in June and the Defi sportif AlterGo happen at the end of April.
In addition to the season’s regularly-scheduled events, the 2017 season will also take young Canadian riders to Winnipeg for the Canada Summer Games, happening in late July and early August. The event has been the hallmark of many up-and-coming cycling careers, boosting the momentum of stars such as Raphaël Gagné, Annie Foreman-Mackey, Brian Walton, Leah Kirchmann, Hugo Houle and Guillaume Brown.
The national season of 2017 officially comes to a close with October’s UCI-sanctioned Silver Goose Cyclocross in Midland, Ont., as well as the national cyclocross championships in Sherbrooke, Que.
NATIONAL CALENDARS (by discipline)
