Canadian riders take podium positions after mixed road races at the 2015 Parapan Am Games

The first day of the 2015 Toronto Parapan Am Games saw Toronto’s Lakeshore Boulevard and the hills of High Park, in the city’s west end, roar with the skill of Canada’s top paracyclists. Canadian riders took podium-placing finishes in a majority of the races, a result that put Mark Ledo in the H3-5 class Men’s Road Race at the top of the heap, with Canada’s Charles Moreau taking bronze in third place.

After that race, Canada’s first gold medal of the Parapan Am Games, which started this weekend and end on August 15, was in the bag.

A full list of results can be viewed here.

Other competitions this morning that put Canadian athletes on the podium were the B classification’s mixed road race, with the team of Daniel Chalifour and Alexandre Cloutier finishing with a silver medal; the H1-2M/H1-5W mixed road race, with Robert Labbe taking bronze; Louis-Albert Jolin-Corriveau’s third place finish in the T1-2 mixed road race final; and Nicole Clermont taking bronze in the C1-5 final for the women.

Cloutier, who rode as Chalifour’s pilot for their silver finish in the tandem class, felt that the preparation of Canadian riders through the past season had paid off this morning. Still, the Quebec cyclist expressed frustration at the circumstances that ended the race with a second-place finish for the two of them, despite the medal placement.

“The race was good for us until the last lap, I guess,” Cloutier said, speaking with Canadian Cycling Magazine. “We had to stop to change our rear wheels, so we got dropped maybe around 30 seconds behind the leaders, who were the Colombians at that time. But we came back on and got to the Colombians, at maybe 20 km to go. We worked together, but they didn’t want to pull in front so we were in front for the last 20 k. I tried to slow down a bit to let them pass us, but they didn’t want to.” In the last stretch of the race, the Colombian riders, Nelson Serna and Sebastian Durango, managed to pull ahead, leaving Chalifour and Cloutier in second.

“It was frustrating, the way it happened,” Cloutier recalled, “but at least we got a medal.”

The T1-2 mixed road race, meanwhile, saw Louis-Albert Jolin-Corriveau take third, while Shelley Gautier — whose recent performances in Switzerland elevated her name to the top of the paracycling game — finished the competition in sixth place. However, as she told Canadian Cycling Magazine, her ride in Toronto today was exactly what she’s been going for, she said.

“It’s great to be involved in the Parapan Am Games,” Gautier said. “I had to compete against males and females that were less disabled than me, because there were no other T1s here, and so I did very well and I’m pleased with my performance. I came in sixth out of seven, so I didn’t come in last, and that was my goal — to not come in last; to beat one T2. I did, so I’m very happy.”

As competitors like Robbi Weldon said, the field of competition across all classifications this year is a very strong one, challenging for any rider. Keeping that in mind was part of Gautier’s preparation, she said, as today’s road race neared.

“I just stayed focused,” she said, “and did what I had to do.”

Her spirits, Gautier said — something to which Weldon also alluded — were bolstered by the simple fact that she was racing in front of a home town crowd, having been educated at the University of Toronto. Like Weldon and other leading paracyclists, her biggest wins lately, like those in Switzerland, have been in front of international audiences in other countries. Being able to race on home soil was a big deal, and it made a difference — both for herself and her supporters.

“I just won two world championship medals in Switzerland, and I came back here and it’s great, because people who have never seen me race had the opportunity to cheer me on,” she said. “So that was nice for them.”

In Gautier’s words, she’s been “riding [her] life away” recently on the hills of Switzerland and elsewhere, terrain that’s trained her to compete at a notably high level. During Saturday’s road race, with the competition veering through the looping, wildly-changing elevations of Toronto’s High Park, that power refined on the steep grades of Switzerland’s alpine and sub-alpine landscapes came in handy.

“I’ve been doing hills because Switzerland is one big hill,” Gautier explained. “Some of the guys complained about [the hills], but for me, they were easy. So all the work that my coach has had me do with hills paid off today.”

Cycling at the Parapan Am Games continues on August 10 and 11 with track cycling, with mixed time trials happening on August 13.