Canadian riders shine at the UCI Para-Cycling World Cup in Maniago, Italy

Canadian riders shone at the top of the podium last Saturday in Italy, after Shelley Gautier and Marie-Eve Croteau completed a pair of impressive gold medal performances at the UCI Para-Cycling World Cup in Maniago.

In the Women’s T1 category on Saturday, Gautier took the gold 22 seconds ahead of Russia’s Yulia Sibagatova, her closest competitor. After 21.3 km, Gautier rolled in at 52:47, a strong performance that topped her second place time trial ride the previous day by a considerable, comfortable margin. Marie-Eve Croteau, meanwhile, similarly beat the nearest racer by 20 seconds in the Women’s T2 category — crossing the finish line at the 45:38 mark. Having finished third in Friday’s time trial, and with her recent health challenges in mind, Croteau’s top-rank finish was especially meaningful.

Since before the 2012 Paralympic Games, Croteau has been suffering from severe health ailments that presented a towering hurdle going into last weekend’s competition. Winning WT2 gold, she book-ended that challenging phase in her competitive career with her own win, the product of an inspiring degree of commitment and perseverance — benefits, she said, of the coaching strategy that got her there.

“Being aware of very limited training in January due to the serious health problem that I had, which deprived me of almost four months of training,” Croteau said, “I now find myself with two World Cup podiums. Honestly, I admit that it was a difficult challenge to get here but I was also trying not to apply that pressure on myself.”

“With my coach Eric Van Den Eynde, we had goals and strategies,” she continued. “We are especially very happy with my road race, in which I applied our strategy to the letter.”

On Sunday’s final day of competition, Canada also added two bronze medals to the overall count. In the Women C4 race, Marie-Claude Molnar took third, 4:59 behind Shawn Morelli who crossed the finish line at the 1:39:11 mark. In the Women C5 bracket, Nicole Clermont also took third at 1:39:14, 5:00 behind Poland’s Anna Harkowska at 1:34:14.

Next up for Canadian riders is the UCI Para-Cycling Road World Cup tour in Yverdon-Les-Bain, which kicks off on Friday, June 12.