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Canadians primed for final UCI track cycling World Cup in Hong Kong

With a World Cup final victory on the line, Team Canada is in Hong Kong for the last of three UCI World Cup track events of the 2015-2016 season, with action starting on Friday.

January 14, 2016
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With a World Cup final victory on the line, Team Canada is in Hong Kong for the last of three UCI World Cup track events of the 2015-2016 season, with action starting on Friday. After gold in Cali, Colombia, and silver in Cambridge, New Zealand, the women’s team pursuit squad–Jasmin Glaesser, Alison Beveridge, Laura Brown and Stephanie Roorda–wears the white World Cup leaders’ jerseys in Hong Kong.

But there’s more than final World Cup gold on the team’s mind. Olympic Games qualification is based on continental and world championships and World Cup results over the past two years.

The women’s pursuit team is looking good for Rio de Janeiro whether or not the quartet takes its second World Cup victory in three years. After Glaesser took seventh in the women’s omnium in Colombia, Beveridge made a fantastic surge in the second day of competition to win gold in New Zealand. Beveridge contests the omnium in Hong Kong while Glaesser fights it out in the points race, a competition in which Beveridge grabbed bronze in Cambridge.

After 8th in Cali and 5th in Cambridge, where they set a new Canadian record, Monique Sullivan and Kate O’Brien can possibly make the Olympic team sprint cut, which would give them individual spots in the keirin and sprint respectively.

Although the men’s team sprint outfit has been making impressive strides, it has no chance at Rio. Therefore, Hugo Barrette will come to Hong Kong only for the individual sprint. However, the men’s team pursuit program, which is now looking ahead to Tokyo 2020, will send World Cup debutante Jay Lamoureux, Adam Jamieson, Sean Mackinnon and Aidan Caves. Caves will compete in the scratch race and Mackinnon the points race.

Can Remi Pelletier-Roy pull something out of the hat in Hong Kong’s omnium? Though he missed Cali with a broken collarbone and wasn’t up to full fitness for Cambridge, Pelletier-Roy has a shout at qualifying for Rio if he can excel in Hong Kong.

There will be another athlete besides Lamoureux making a World Cup debut. Two-time Winter Olympian Georgia Simmerling has made the switch from ski-cross to track cycling. Simmerling and Annie Foreman-Mackey are in Asia as alternates for the team pursuit foursome.