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Quebec sweeps road races at 2017 Canada Games

Simone Boilard and Pier-André Côté victorious in Winnipeg

August 10, 2017
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Quebec’s dominance in cycling at the Canada Games continued through the road racing events on Thursday in Winnipeg. After the province took four gold medals in mountain biking and a total of seven, athletes from the province continued the haul in road cycling.

Simone Boilard won the women’s road race from a bunch sprint ahead of Katharine Maine of Ontario and Anna Talman of Alberta on Wednesday. In the men’s road race Pier-André Côté won from an escape ahead of Connor Toppings of Alberta and Jay Lamoureux of British Columbia on Thursday.

“I didn’t expect at all to win,” admitted Boilard, who silver in the time trial the day before. “We knew that we had the strongest team, so for us there was a lot of pressure. With two laps to go my team mates told me ‘you are going to sprint’, so I had no choice but to win for them. It wasn’t a difficult course because it was flat, but the rain made it hard. It was more a tactical race; we had wanted a breakaway, but it didn’t work, so we had to reshuffle the cards.”

Maine who races for Rally Cycling said after finishing second, “The race was super aggressive and our team [Ontario] did a good job of getting in every move. It didn’t quite come together at the end, but we were pretty close, so I’m happy.”

In the men’s race, 16 riders escaped on the flat course with Quebec, Alberta, BC, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick all represented. From that move, six riders escaped and were poised to contest the win. In the group were Côté (Que.),Toppings (Alta.), Lamoureux (B.C.), Marc-Antoine Soucy (Que.), Willem Boersma (Ont.) and Trevor O’Donnell (Ont.).

Côté proved to be the strongest winning by three seconds on Toppings with Lamoureux another 10 second behind.

On Tuesday, Gillian Ellsay of British Columbia won the women’s ITT title over Quebec’s Boilard and Catharine Oullette. In the men’s ITT, Adam Roberge won the title ahead of Côté. Both Quebecers ride for Silber Pro Cycling. Jay Lamoureux of British Columbia made it two medals for B.C. in the ITT. Quebec earned four medals in the individual time trial.

“It’s really cool to win,” said Ellsay who races professionally for UCI team Colavita-Bianchi. “This is my second Canada Games, so to come back and be able to win the gold medal is pretty special. It was a goal to be top-five, but I didn’t know how good my form was coming here.”

Roberge was fresh from a big block of racing. “I wanted to win, for sure,” said Roberge, “but I had just come from the Tour of Utah, so I didn’t know how my legs would feel. At three kilometres to go I wasn’t sure if I had the win, so I went all out. I didn’t even know that I had won when I crossed the line and when Pier [-André Côté] told me I was first, I couldn’t have asked for more. I’m super happy.”

The cycling events at the Canada Games conclude on Saturday with the men’s and women’s criteriums.

For full cycling results.