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Three medals for Team Canada on first full day of Milton track World Cup

Gold for Genest and Mitchell in the team sprint

January 24, 2020
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Team Canada came out swinging on Friday’s full day of competition at the final UCI track cycling World Cup of the season in Milton’s Mattamy National Cycling Centre. The squad earned three medals in the evening session, winning bronze in the men’s and women’s team pursuit and a gold in the women’s team sprint.

Action began on Thursday night with the team pursuit qualification rounds. On the women’s side Erin Attwell, Miriam Brouwer, Devaney Collier and Kinley Gibson were the second fastest quartet after the U.S.A., while Evan Burtnik, Chris Ernst, Jackson Kinniburgh and Sean Richardson clocked the fourth fastest time of five men’s outfits.

When Friday’s schedule kicked off the Canadian women faced France in Heat 3 of the first round. Although the French prevailed, Canada posted a fast enough time to head to the bronze medal match versus Belgium, who proved 1.5-seconds slower than the Canucks. It was the women’s third bronze this season after claiming them in Cambridge, New Zealand and Brisbane, Australia.

The men’s team pursuit squad was also clipped by France in Round 1, but their time threw them into the bronze medal match with Belarus, Amiel Flett-Brown taking over from Richardson. Again, the Canadians were 1.5-seconds faster than their bronze competitors. This is the Canadian men’s team pursuit gang’s first medal of the season after a silver and bronze in the 2018-2091 World Cup.

Genest and Mitchell had taken three individual medals between them in the Hong Kong and Cambridge rounds, but they hadn’t united to race the team sprint until Friday. All’s the pity, as they were a lethal duo once they got to the final. In the qualifiers, they were fourth fastest, with Canadian trade club Pedal 2 the Medal fifth fastest. This pitted Genest and Mitchell versus P2M’s Amelia Walsh and Sarah Orban in the first round. There, Genest and Mitchell won with the fastest time of the round.

In the final against Poland, Genest added a gold medal to her Cambridge silver in the keirin, and Mitchell “hit for the cycle” this season: gold, individual sprint silver in Hong Kong and individual sprint bronze in Cambridge.

Mitchell and Orban contest the individual sprint on Saturday, Joel Archambault and Hugo Barrette follow the derney in the keirin, Jackson Kinniburgh sets off on his omnium journey, and Brouwer and Collier get in some hand slings in the madison.