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Day one of the Canadian track championships at the Milton velodrome brings Canada’s Olympic goals closer

Wednesday's first day of competition at the 2015 Canadian track cycling championships saw a few gilded names in the Canadian cycling scene earn red and white jerseys -- and advance Canada's Olympic cause as Rio 2016 draws ever nearer.

Monique Sullivan
Monique Sullivan
Monique Sullivan (pictured) and Kate O’Brien won gold in the women’s team sprint. Photo credit: Kevin Mackinnon

Wednesday’s first day of competition at the 2015 Canadian track cycling championships, happening this week at the Mattamy National Cycling Centre in Milton, Ont., saw a few gilded names in the Canadian cycling scene earn red and white jerseys — and advance Canada’s Olympic cause as Rio 2016 draws ever nearer.

The event’s first win went to Monique Sullivan and Kate O’Brien in the women’s team sprint category, the gold medal-winning duo from the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.

After winning the same event at the 2014 Canadian track championships, Sullivan and O’Brien rode to a successful defense of that title, posting a winning final time of 34.858. With that win — putting them 2.516 seconds ahead of their closest rivals, Jamie Gilgen and Lizanne Wilmont — the two riders earned the honour of representing Canada at the UCI World Cup series, with the possibility of establishing a place for Canada at next summer’s Olympic Games in Rio. For the men, a team consisting of Evan Carey, Joe Veloce and Hugo Barrette similarly powered their way to an easy gold medal win, clocking a time of 45.034 to take the title.

In second, Chris Singleton, Joe Archambault and Mischa Partridge rode in similarly strong fashion, crossing the finish less than four seconds behind the team of Carey, Veloce and Barrette.

Georgia Simmerling, meanwhile, continues to command some serious results in the years since her conversion to the saddle. This year, it was as part of a squad alongside Laura Brown, Stephanie Roorda and Jasmin Glaesser, who rode to victory over Equipe du Quebec, whose ranks included Kirsti Lay, Ariana Bonhomme, Catherine Dessureault and Catherine Ouellette — and all by a margin of greater than five seconds. The outcome earned Team West Coast — as the team of Roorda, Brown and Glaesser is known — the title in women’s team pursuit on Wednesday.

The men’s pursuit competition, meanwhile, saw a who’s-who of some of Ontario’s best riders represent the host province nicely, with a gold medal win at the state-of-the-art Milton velodrome. Ed Veal, Ryan Roth, Sean MacKinnon and Aidan Caves surged to a track-rumbling win, crossing the finish with a time of 4:12.446. It put the Ontario team ahead of second place finishers Team NBA, represented by Adam Jamieson, Jack Burke, Jay Lamoureaux and Alexander Cowan. Throughout the competition, Team Canada’s ranks accounted for much of the field, and the significance of this year’s event hits home with 2016 bringing the Rio 2016 Olympics. Along with the importance of the team’s performance this weekend, Wednesday’s events also herald the kick-off of an equally significant, decisive part of the season on that count, with the UCI World Cup and 2016 Track World Championships both looming ever larger for the Canadian national squad.

Wednesday’s riding also saw commanding performances from Canada’s para-cyclists. The duo of Daniel Chalifour and pilot Jean-Michel Lachance claimed gold in the tandem category, hitting 96.64% of the National Team Standards for the gold medal, while Alexandre Carrier, piloted by Arrousen Laflamme, took second with 95.73. Lowell Taylor and Mark McDonald, finally, claimed third place. Marie-Claude Molnar was another of the event’s best-performing riders, taking the top of the podium in women’s C-class competition with a time of 43.553, topping out at around 41 kph.

Jaye Milley, in the men’s competition, earned gold with 95.35 of the National Team Standards for a gold medal win, with Tristen Chernove in second, and Braydon McDougall in third with 92.77%.

With files from Cycling Canada.