From the skates to the saddle: Former figure skater to ride for Canada at the UCI amateur world championships
In 2005, Andrea Elliott quit figure skating and discovered a taste for competitive cycling. Ten years later, she's on her way to Europe, representing Canada at the amateur world championships.
In the early 2000s, Andrea Elliott’s competitive career moved at a much different pace—the sort usually associated with skates, not a bike.
From 2000 to 2004, the Port Hope, Ont., native was a national figure skating competitor, having represented eastern Ontario at several Canadian figure skating championships. Then, one day, she decided she was done with the ice and hung up her skates, retiring from the sport. At the time, she presumed she was done with competition for good, no matter what the sport. But it didn’t take her long to discover a new focus for her athletic spirit.
As it turned out, that discovery came when she watched the Tour de France back in 2005.
Almost immediately, Elliott was hooked. Now, flash forward 10Â years to 2015, as Elliott sits at the threshold of a new, exciting first in her competitive career: her first amateur international race as a cyclist in Europe, representing Canada. As she told the Northumberland News, jumping so quickly from one sport to another was unexpected enough. That it brought her to the UCI World Cycling Tour final, a.k.a. the amateur world cycling championships, in Denmark is something else entirely.
“It takes a lot of time and a lot of commitment,” she said, referring to the dedication required to be a contender in any sport. After being a national figure skating competitor for years, she never thought she’d be so interested in re-investing a high level of commitment to another sport. “To think that I went further in my secondary sport,” she said. “It’s still surreal.”
But it’s not like Elliott just lucked into contention in Denmark. From May 22 to 24, Elliott competed in the amateur world cycling championships qualifying event held in Grey Bruce County. The time trial, she recalled, was the most difficult: chilly temperatures and a 50 km/h headwind. When competition moved on to the 130-km road race, though, she found herself much more comfortably in her element. “It was my kind of course,” she said. “I’m a climber and there were lots of hills so I took off at 50 km and split the group up.”
She finished second in both the time trial and the road race. The prize: a spot in Denmark, where Elliott is scheduled to compete from Sept. 3 to 6.
Another perk that stemmed from her strong performance in Bruce County was the signing of a two-year contract to ride for Giant Bicycles. But while Giant covers the cost of racing in the Ontario Cup, the cost of actually getting to Denmark, paying for hotel rooms, and the various other necessities involved in racing internationally as an amateur rest on Elliott’s shoulders. To lighten that load a bit, Elliott has set up a GoFundMe campaign, hoping to offset the costs of the trip.
It’s a trip, in the long run, that Elliott hopes will inspire more women from eastern Ontario—between Cobourg and Whitby, specifically—to hit the saddle themselves. “It would be great to see more women involved in this area,” she said.
