2009 Track National Championships – Burnaby, British Columbia

Fri, Aug. 28/09
Today was Day One of track competition for me. I qualified 3rd in the Individual Pursuit this morning which put me straight through to the bronze medal final this evening. I was racing against Steph Roorda in the final. It was a seesaw battle that saw the lead change many times. In the end, I won in a respectable time of 3:58.

Sat, Aug 29/09
Today was the Points race. It was 20km (100 laps) with sprints every 10 laps. I was in a group of 3 that lapped the field and duked it out for the top 2 places. I won the bronze medal in one a very aggressive points race.

Sun, Aug 30/ 09
Today was the final day of the National Championships. I raced in the 10km scratch race. It was 50 laps of the 200 metre track.

Three laps into the race, Laura Brown attacked. A Quebec rider was in front of me and she got out of her saddle to go with the break. Her chain snapped with the acceleration and I was stuck behind her to try and maneuver around. I had to “put on the brakes” then steer up and over.

Fortunately, everyone stayed upright but there was a break of three (Rachel Canning, Laura Brown and Tara Whitten) already one third of the way around the track. I put the hammer down and caught the remaining group. When I got to the front I drove it as hard as I could to try to get up to the break. Unfortunately, no one was able to stay with me so I put my head down and chased and chased and chased. I was chasing solo for a total of 27 laps.

One of the riders in the break of three (Rachel Canning) got dropped and the remaining two (Laura Brown and Tara Whitten) caught and lapped me. I jumped on their wheel and sat on until Canning was caught and I “unlapped” her. At this point the four of us were together with about 5 laps to go. Tara and Laura were set to battle for gold and I was duking it out for bronze with Rachel Canning. It was like two match sprints happening simultaneously. With 2.5 laps to go, I jumped and came across the line for a bronze medal.

I believe I was seeing stars for about an hour afterwards. It felt like I’d done a 50 lap pursuit! I was happy with the result given the bad luck I had at the beginning of the race. This was a good reminder for me never to give up. You just never know what can happen!

My results for the weekend:
Bronze medal: Individual Pursuit
Bronze medal: Points Race
Bronze medal: Scratch Race

Additional coverage on the Canadian Cycling Association’s website:

http://www.canadian-cycling.com/cca/media/news/2009/0829_tracknationals.shtml