Guillaume Boivin: Back to the Pan Am Games road race
With the men’s road race on Saturday, Guillaume Boivin will return to Pan Am Games competition once again. He was the top-placed Canadian (11th) in the road race in Guadalajara, Mexico, at the 2011 Pan Am Games.
Boivin is Canada’s recently minted road race champion, an honour he took in June. “I’m feeling pretty good,” he said recently. “I had a nice little rest after nationals, almost a month ago now. I’ve been prepping at home for this event and the end of the season so I’m looking forward to it.”
On the road, Boivin will be joined by Hugo Houle and Sean Mackinnon. His former 2011 Pan Am road race teammate, Rémi Pelletier-Roy (32nd), will round out he squad. “I think we’re coming in here with a great team, with quite a bit of depth,” Boivin said. “I think with a small field, any one of us has a chance to win the bike race. We really have to play our cards right and really play off each other as best as we can and try to go get the gold medal.”
Canada has the maximum number of riders on its team: four. Boivin, whose pro team is Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies, often races in a team of eight on the road. The small teams and field (only 44 riders on the start list) will bring certain challenges. “It’s one of those races that’s really hard to control,” Boivin said. “We only have four guys, and that’s the most any country can have. You just have to be really aggressive and try to find a combination at the front that you like, that you’re comfortable with. You really have to know your opponents very well and their strengths.”
As for the competition, Boivin sees Colombia as a treat. “I think Colombia has a very strong team,” he said. “They’ve got a very, very fast sprinter in their ranks, Gaviria. He won the world championships in the omnium. He beat Cavendish twice at the Tour de San Luis earlier in the year so there’s no doubt that they’re the ones to beat.”
Even though Colombia has Garviria and the parcours isn’t too lumpy, Boivin doesn’t necessarily see the race finishing in a sprint. “Unless Colombia is really keen on controlling 45 guys in four-man teams at the start, I really have a hard time seeing a bunch kick for that race,” Boivin said. “But the beauty of the sport is that you never know. You’ll have to tune in on Saturday to see.”
Follow Boivin’s advice! Tune into Canadian Cycling Magazine‘s live coverage of the women’s and men’s road races of the Pan Am Games to see how the action plays out on the streets of Toronto.
