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How Canada’s road and MTB results stack up against previous Olympic Games

Woods and Houle enjoy fine races, Pendrel bows out after four Olympics

Photo by: Sirotti

The Tokyo 2021 Summer Olympic Games road and mountain bike races are over and there’s a pause before track cycling in which we can watch a little BMX and assess how Canada is faring so far in comparison with previous Olympic results.

Michael Woods’s fifth place was the standout performance on the road. There was some disappointment when Rusty departed from the Tour de France a few days early to prepare for the Olympic Games, but surely fifth in Tokyo was a better accomplishment than defending a top-25 place and contesting a mountains classification that was going to go to Tadej Pogačar anyway.

Men’s road race and time trial

Fifth was the best result for a Canadian male since Steve Bauer’s silver in Los Angeles 1984, and a bit better than Michael Barry’s eighth in 2008. Woods was aggressive and prominent throughout the race, and it’s a shame he had to sprint out for the medals against the likes of Pogačar and Wout Van Aert.

Woods beats out Brandon McNulty for fifth at the Fuji International Speedway. Photo: Sirotti

The men’s chrono was also a highlight. Hugo Houle’s 13th place is the third best Canadian men’s time trial result after Frank Brown’s fifth in Stockholm 1912 and Svein Tuft’s seventh in Beijing 2008. Houle called it his best solo career performance.

Hugo Houle on the Fuji Speedway at Tokyo Olympic Time Trial. Photo: Sirotti

Women’s road race and time trial

Karol-Ann Canuel has been Canada’s best in the road race for the past two editions: 25th in Rio and 16th in Tokyo. Team Canada will be relieved to have a rider back in the top-20, as Rio was the first time since Los Angeles 1984 that the team did not. (Geneviève Robic-Brunet, who placed 22nd in L.A., bounced back to come fourth in Seoul 1988.)

With Clara Hughes’s time trial bronze in Atlanta 1996, sixth in Sydney 2000 and fifth in London 2012, and Tara Whitten’s fifth in Rio 2016, it was going to be hard for Canuel and Leah Kirchmann to impress in the race against the clock. Twelfth and 14th spots were satisfactory out of 25 contestants, but of all the countries with two riders—the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and the U.S.A. being the others—Canada’s average placing, 13th, was the lowest.

Karol-Ann Canuel has been Canada’s rock in Olympic Games road events. Photo: Sirotti

Mountain bike

On dirt, the picture is less clear. There’s individual results, on the one hand, and the state of the mountain bike program on the other.

Catharine Pendrel led the Canadian results, finishing 18th in her fourth, and final Olympics. It’s not the bronze medal the highly-decorated Kamloops, B.C. rider earned in Rio, but it is an inspiring performance, coming just six months after becoming a new mother. Pendrel has paved the way for future Canadian riders on the podium and again now in helping create a space for motherhood in elite athletics.

Peter Disera and Haley Smith both made their Olympic debut in Tokyo, finishing 26th and 29th,  respectively. As individuals, those are steps towards the Paris Games in 2024.

As a program, that does signal it might be time to ask some questions. The Canadian women have three medals since the sport made its debut in 1996, including Pendrel and Batty’s 3-4 finish in Rio in 2016. Geoff Kabush set the high mark for the men in 2012, finishing eighth in London. Cycling Canada has no shortage of promising athletes, but is the organization having trouble translating that talent into results?

The bigger question for Cycling Canada is why there were only three athletes in Tokyo. When it was announced after 2016 that two nations would be allowed to qualify a third athlete, the Canadian women’s program looked well positioned to take advantage. Instead, those spots went to the Swiss, who swept the women’s podium, and the U.S. team. The latter put in a concerted and organized effort to claim the third spot. That resulted in a ninth (emerging star Haley Batten), 15th (Kate Courtney) and 31st (Erin Huck) for the U.S.

On the men’s side, Tokyo is the first time Canada has qualified a single rider. In both cases, men’s and women’s, Canada has the depth in the program to have expected an additional, or at least a consistent number start spots. As the U.S. women showed, earning those spots requires some organization, not just strong individual results. For Canada, that meant leaving riders on the sidelines in Tokyo.

There’s plenty of good young talent in Canada’s dirt ranks, with the likes of Emilly Johnston, Gunnar Holmgren and Carter Woods, Marianne Théberge, and many others, but can the national program translate this potential into success? There was a strong pool of young riders in 2016, too. Instead of building on the success of Rio, the size of the Olympic team shrunk.

Time for the boards

Our eyes now turn from outdoors to indoors, as track cycling begins on Aug. 3. Although Canada has been shut out of medals in the past two world championships, it’s had a regular presence on the World Cup podiums. In the past World Cup series (2019-2020), Kelsey Mitchell was second overall in the sprint, Lauriane Genest was fifth in keirin and the women’s team pursuit squad was fifth. In the omnium, Allison Beveridge placed second in the Brisbane, Australia round and third in the Cambridge, New Zealand round. Right now, Mitchell has Canada’s best chance of a cycling medal.