CANADA WINS BRONZE MEDAL ON FINAL DAY OF TRACK WORLDS
Duehring, who was seventh in the Scratch Race on the opening day of the Championships, came back from a disappointing Madison on Saturday to finish third behind Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands and Jennifer Valente of the United States. Duehring was one of nine riders to lap the field, as well as scoring points in three intermediate points during the race, to finish with 30 points in total.
Photo Rob Jones/Canadian Cyclist (All Rights Reserved) – Jasmin Duehring
Media: Please contact Karine Bedard for image use.
“We’ve had a strong team here, but it hasn’t quite translated into medals, so I was really proud to have our Canadian flag go up once,” said Duehring. “I’ve been on the podium a few times in this event and the rainbow jersey has eluded me, so I really wanted to go for it. I raced aggressively and a couple of times tried to make a move to get a lap, but Kirsten Wild was so strong out there and she wasn’t letting anyone get away.”
Stefan Ritter was the only other Canadian athlete to race on Sunday, finishing 16th in the 1000 metre time trial with a time of one minute and 1.923 seconds. Ritter raced with a broken clavicle from an early crash. Jeffrey Hoogland of the Netherlands won the world title.
“It’s not the ride I was hoping for,” admitted Ritter, “I was definitely hoping for a top-10. But considering that I could not do a bunch of kilo prep and we didn’t practice many starts because of my shoulder, honestly, I’m pretty happy with 16th. I did feel on the standing starts; it’s painful but I can push through it and I’m pretty lucky that I can still ride and race.”
Photo Rob Jones/Canadian Cyclist (All Rights Reserved) – Stefan Ritter, 1000m Time Trial
Jacques Landry, Chief Technical Officer – Head Coach at Cycling Canada, said “it’s not the best Track Worlds we’ve had, but certainly better than last year, when the men’s Team Pursuit squad crashed. Looking at the world championships as a whole, we have a lot of things to take home and work on. The men’s Team Pursuit rode really well and they are a lot more technically sound so we just have to do some fine tuning. In the women’s Team Pursuit, we didn’t have all of our ‘A’ riders here and still managed to finish fourth, so next year in the Olympic qualification window we expect to be stronger as we’ll have more riders to choose from and who will feed off each other to get better.”
“On the sprint side, Amelia [Walsh] is continuing to progress and with Lauriane Genest moving up the ranks, we may be in the running for the Team Sprint in the future. For the men, Hugo [Barrette] needs to be able to deliver more than one or two good rides, so he needs to build his capacity. Stefan [Ritter] continues to learn and progress, and just needs more racing practice to avoid making mistakes. All in all, there are a lot of takeaways; we know what we have to do and we just have to execute. I think we are in a good situation; we may not have some of the rankings we are used to, but that is just a temporary situation and we’ll be able to get back on track for when it really counts.”
“On the sprint side, Amelia [Walsh] is continuing to progress and with Lauriane Genest moving up the ranks, we may be in the running for the Team Sprint in the future. For the men, Hugo [Barrette] needs to be able to deliver more than one or two good rides, so he needs to build his capacity. Stefan [Ritter] continues to learn and progress, and just needs more racing practice to avoid making mistakes. All in all, there are a lot of takeaways; we know what we have to do and we just have to execute. I think we are in a good situation; we may not have some of the rankings we are used to, but that is just a temporary situation and we’ll be able to get back on track for when it really counts.”
About Cycling Canada
Cycling Canada is the governing body for competitive cycling in Canada. Founded in 1882, Cycling Canada aims to create and sustain an effective system that develops talented Canadian cyclists to achieve Olympic, Paralympic, and World Championship medal performances. With the vision of being a leading competitive cycling nation by 2020 celebrating enhanced international success, increased national participation and world class event hosting, Cycling Canada manages the High Performance team, hosts national and international events and administers programs to promote and grow cycling across the country. Cycling Canada programs are made possible through the support of its valued corporate partners – Global Relay, Lexus Canada, Mattamy Homes, Louis Garneau and Bear Mountain Resort – along with the Government of Canada, Own The Podium, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.
Source: Cycling Canada
Information:
Karine Bedard l Cycling Canada l 438-884-8771 l karine.bedard@cyclingcanada.ca