STRONG START FOR CANADA AT 2020 TRACK WORLDS

Berlin, Germany (February 26, 2020) – Canada had a strong start to the 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Berlin, the last qualifying event before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Both the women’s Team Pursuit and women’s Team Sprint squads posted very fast rides while Canada’s men’s Team Pursuit were also in action against an extremely competitive field.

The first day opened with the Team Pursuit qualifying with Canada’s endurance squads coming off a two-month long training block in New Zealand. The Canadian women’s team of Allison Beveridge, Jasmin Duehring, Annie Foreman-Mackey and Georgia Simmerling had a fantastic ride in qualifying smashing the previous Canadian record by nearly 1.5s with a time of 4:12.728. On Thursday, they will face Great Britain in Round 1 with the winner heading to the gold medal final.

“It was a very pleasing ride,” said Matt Shallcrass, Cycling Canada’s Women’s Track Endurance Coach. “We’ve made some pretty big steps from the World Cup season and this shows that our hard work over the New Zealand summer paid off.”

Lauriane Genest and Kelsey Mitchell kicked off the women’s sprint events with the Team Sprint, where the duo was competing together for the first time at the world championships level. The pair set a fast time of 32.829 to qualify in third place and faced Germany in the first round. Despite a strong ride, the pair was narrowly beat by .058s and finished in 5th place.