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Canada’s Tokyo medalists relegated in track Worlds team sprint

Maggie Coles-Lyster with Team Canada's best result on opening day in Roubaix

Kelsey Mitchell gold medal tokyo olympics
October 20, 2021
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This summer Kelsey Mitchell and Lauriane Genest won Canada’s only cycling medals in the Tokyo Olympic Games, but on Wednesday’s opening day of action at the 2021 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Roubaix, France, they were part of a trio was relegated in the team sprint. Having qualified for the first round with the third best time, Mitchell, Genest and Sarah Orban were relegated for irregular rider change off and wouldn’t progress past Japan even though the Canuck trio posted a time fast enough to make the gold medal race.

The venue for Roubaix 2021 is the indoor Vélodrome Couvert Regional Jean-Stablinski, not the outdoor Vélodrome André-Pétrieux of Paris-Roubaix fame. The 2021 Worlds were originally slated for Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, but COVID-19 complications necessitated a move.

You can watch the 2021 UCI Track Cycling World Championships at FloBikes.

The 2021 Worlds began with women’s team pursuit qualifying. Maggie Coles-Lyster, Ngaire Barraclough, Sarah van Dam and Erin J Attwell represented Canada, and they set a time of 4:23.988 over 4 kilometres, qualifying with the fifth best time, +0.10.906 of top squad Germany. The Canadians will take on the Swiss in Thursday’s first round.

Canadian women’s team pursuit squad in Tokyo this summer.

Next on the boards were the team pursuit men. Derek Gee, Michael Foley, Jackson Kinniburgh and Ethan Ogrodniczuk stopped the clock with 3:59.651. With two teams remaining, the Canuck quartet was precariously perched in seventh. The Italians, who so dramatically snatched the gold from Danes at the Tokyo Olympic Games, dropped Gee and company down to eighth. The Danes were the last to roll and by finishing third, they eliminated the maple leaf foursome.

The Canadian men’s team sprint trio was Hugo Barrette, Nick Wammes and Ryan Dodyk. With the seventh fastest qualifying time, the three Canadians were matched up against France in the first round. The French prevailed by 1.3 seconds.

Canada’s best result on Wednesday was in the scratch race. Coles-Lyster got back on her machine and placed fourth out of 20 riders.

Team Canada will be back on the boards Thursday in the men’s keirin, women’s individual pursuit, women’s team pursuit and women’s elimination race.