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Gold and silver for Canada on Milton World Cup’s second day

Beveridge doubles her maple syrup haul in the women's team pursuit and omnium

December 2, 2017
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The Canadian women’s team pursuit squad took its third World Cup gold medal in three seasons by beating New Zealand in Saturday’s final on the first full day in Milton. A member of the golden quartet, Allison Beveridge then won her second medal of the evening in the omnium. Added to Jasmin Duehring’s silver on Friday, Saturday’s haul gives Canada three medals. Hugo Barrette also made it to the final of the men’s keirin where he was sixth.


The day started with 200-metre flying lap qualifying for the women’s individual sprint. Amelia Walsh, half of Canada’s team sprint duo, placed 14th with a time of 11.31. German track legend Kristina Vogel set the fastest time of 10.796. Fourteenth earned Walsh a spot in the 1/16 finals where Japan’s Kayono Maeda got the better of the Canadian.


Next came the Canadian women’s team pursuit squad in the first round of competition. Having qualified with the fastest time Friday, the Canucks faced Japan, while New Zealand, second in qualifying, had France to contend with. Both the Kiwis and the Canadians trounced their competitors, Canada lapping the Japanese with two laps to go.

The Canadian women’s team pursuit quartet lapped the Japanese in the first round.

In the final against New Zealand, Allison Beveridge, Ariane Bonhomme, Annie Foreman-Mackey and Kinley Gibson had a .350 second lead after 2000-metres, but the Kiwis really fell away over the next kilometre. Bonhomme dropped away but the remaining trio caught the three Kiwis left on the boards.

Two seasons ago the Canadian women’s team pursuit outfit won two golds with Beveridge in the crew.

France managed to beat Japan, having to come back from being down after one kilometre. Both teams finished with three riders.

Allison Beveridge’s omnium journey began with the scratch race where she got her campaign off to a good start with fourth place. The second event was the tempo race, a 7.5-km variation of the points race, except the sprinting came every lap and the points are awarded to the first two riders across the line. Beveridge nabbed the first points before Yumi Kajihara of Japan, winner of the scratch, took a big lead. Beveridge kept chipping away at it and captured second, which put her in second overall, eight points behind Kajihara and two ahead of Mexico’s Lizbeth Vazquez Salazar.

Allison Beveridge and Yumi Kajihara battled in the omnium.

One needs nerves for the omnium’s elimination race, the third of four events. Friday’s bronze winner in the points race, Jamila Machakova of the Czech Republic, was the first to be eliminated while Vazquez Salazar was the fifth rider to fall. Again, Kajihara took the maximum points while Beveridge was third.

One more event remained, the 20-km points race. Beveridge retained second place, four points ahead of Brit Eleanor Dickinson and 12-points behind Kajihara. She had to contest for the gold in the team pursuit before the points race.

Having stashed her podium maple syrup somewhere safe, Beveridge got down to business. The fifteen riders would sprint every 10-laps, with 5, 3, 2 and 1 points for the first four places and big bonus seconds for lapping the field. Beveridge took 3 to Kajihara’s 5 in Sprint 1 and stayed attentive to the splits, taking one point back on the Japanese rider in Sprint 2.

Beveridge and Kajihara were caught at the back on Sprint 3, which was won by Dickinson. The Brit took over second spot. Kajihara claimed Sprint 4 but Beveridge retook the silver spot. The Canadian nipped the Brit in Sprint 5 to bolster her delicate lead, and then a fine plunging move on Sprint 6 put a little more daylight between second and third. The two began to ignore Kajihara, neither taking points on Sprint 7. With double points on offer in the final sprint and the Canadian’s lead only 4-points, the tension was high.

But four riders had a big gap off the front. Kajihara lapped the group to really stamp her authority on the omnium and Beveridge’s silver was safe.

Beveridge won the omnium two seasons ago in the Cambridge, New Zealand round.


For the last two seasons, Hugo Barrette has earned World Cup keirin silvers, and just over midway through the afternoon session he and six other riders followed the derny (well, dirt bike) in the third heat of the keirin qualifying. Barrette took the Heat 3 win, beating Spaniard Juan Peralta Gascon, the silver medalist in this season’s Manchester round.

Hugo Barrette bosses Heat 3 of keirin qualifying.

In Heat 2 of Round 2, Barrette was matched up with three Japanese athletes and the silver medalist from the Poland World Cup round, Joachim Eilers. Barrette was strong in a rather broken-up field to take third and advance to the final. Eilers, who also went through to the final, gave Hugo a pat on the back as they took a cooling down lap.

Eilers and Barrette had two-time world champion François Pervis of France to overcome in the final. Barrette started from the highest position on the track. Barrette had to come from the back and couldn’t make up ground on the final two laps. Dutchman Harrie Lavreysen captured the gold, Brit Lewis Oliva took silver and Eilers was the bronze medalist.