No Canadian under-23 men’s team at the UCI road world championships

On Sept. 17, Cycling Canada announced the 15 athletes who will represent Canada at the upcoming UCI road world championships in Ponferrada, Spain beginning on Sept. 22 through to Sept. 28. Included in the roster is Canada’s current elite men’s and women’s double national champions (road and time trial): Svein Tuft and Leah Kirchmann. In addition to sending our top riders for the elite worlds, Canada will field a strong team for the junior men’s and women’s world championships. Both junior teams will have four riders.

Unlike in previous years, Canada will not be sending an under-23 men’s team to the world championships. “I don’t know really; it’s just really disappointing,” said under-23 national road champion Ben Perry. Traditionally, Canada’s under-23 national champions, for both road and time trial, were granted automatic selection to race in the world championships.

According to Cycling Canada’s high-performance director Jacques Landry, it was simply a function of UCI points. No Canadian under-23 riders had accumulated enough points, thus Canada had not earned any spots for the under-23 worlds. However, Canada did not send a men’s team to any of the Nations Cup races in 2014. One of the challenges was that the Coupes des Nations de Ville Saguenay is no longer an under-23 men’s stage race. The event was re-named to the Grand Prix Cycliste de Saguenay and became a UCI 2.2 sanctioned event. This change meant that Cycling Canada lost a key opportunity to send an under-23 men’s squad to earn valuable UCI points on home soil. Due to the limited resources to allocate to all projects throughout a given year, there were but a few opportunities for Canadian under-23s to race Nations Cup events.

The men’s under-23 world championships has proved to be a valuable stepping stone in the past. In 2010, Guillaume Boivin who is now on Team Cannondale placed third in the under-23 men’s road race, while Hugo Houle of Ag2r-La Mondiale placed fourth in the 2012 under-23 men’s road race.

The full roster of Canada’s team for the World Championships can be found at Cycling Canada.