Silver Medal at Panamerican Championships

On a day when numerous Canadian records were broken, Travis Smith came out on the podium winning a silver medal in the kilo. Smith broke his Canadian record riding to a time of 1:01.429, earning him the second step on the podium. Stephane Cossette also raced in the kilo, finishing in sixth place and setting a new personal best shaving 1.18 seconds of his best time to finish in 1:02.671.
Both Smith and Cossette are racing today in the sprints.

Daniele Defranceschi, Mark MacDonald, Jean-Michel Lachance, and Remi Pelltier-Roy took almost a second off the Canadian record in the Men’s Team Pursuit at the Pan American Championships in Aguascalientes, Mexico . With this ride, the team finished in fifth position.

The setting of new personal bests continued when Monique Sullivan set another one in the 200 meter sprint qualifier. Her previous personal best was set at Junior Worlds in Aguascalientes in 2007 and today’s fourth fastest time of 11.307 gave her confidence heading in to the sprint rounds. She easily dispatched her Mexican pairing in the 1/8 round and won the first two races in the quarter finals moving on to the semi-final round today.

Steph Roorda and Laura Brown raced in the Scratch Race and were outnumbered by the South Americans finishing in 9th and 10th place respectively. “My goal for the scratch race was to race hard, but smart. I was aggressive in the race, I spent 10 laps or so off the front. I was caught inside half distance to go, and then set myself up for the finish. I made a move with a few laps to go, but it didn’t go as I hoped. I was wanting a better result from this race, but feel I had a solid ride,” says Roorda.

Canadian’s racing on May 14th are:
Women’s Omnium: Steph Roorda
Men’s Omnium: Remi Pelletier-Roy
Men’s Sprint: Travis Smith, Stephane Cossette, Joseph Veloce
Women’s Sprint Finals: Monique Sullivan
Madison: Mark MacDonald and Daniele Defranceschi