01.22.09 - Canadians win two medals on first day of racing at Beijing World Cup

January 22, 2010 – The Canadian Track Team competing at the final World Cup woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Beijing, a nice change from the smog they arrived in a few days ago. Eight of the ten Canadians were scheduled to race, including Tara Whitten in the individual pursuit. “I am really looking forward to the pursuit … it was the first event that I competed in at the World Cup level and it still is my favourite event.” Whitten posted the third fastest time in qualifying, 1.3 seconds behind the second fastest qualifier. Not happy with her performance she came back fighting in the bronze medal match and took off more than a second from her qualifying ride to win her match in a time of 3:40.365. Allison Shanks of New Zealand took home the gold in a time of 3:33.360 and Vilija Sereikaite of Lithuania the silver in 3:41.679.

Monique Sullivan finished 18th in the sprint qualifiers in a time of 11.894 with the top 16 advancing to the sprint round. Stephanie Roorda and Laura Brown, both competing in their first World Cup scratch races placed 13th and 16th respectively in their qualifying heats, narrowly missing a start in the final.

The men’s team sprint team of Travis Smith, Joseph Veloce, and Stephane Cossette performed well with a 9th place finish and time of 45.652. Coach Richard Wooles believes they can shave off 0.3 or more seconds with some more practice and technical adjustments and that they can place in the top 10 at Worlds.

Zach Bell, who finished 4th at the last World Cup in Cali and 2nd last year in Beijing in the points race was aiming for the highest step on the podium. He won points in three of the sprints, and gained points for lapping the field in the first half of the race. With about 25 laps to go he seized an opportunity to lap the field again and won the race one lap ahead of everyone else. “It felt great to finally crack this nut I have been working on for 5 years. I went in with a plan to be at the sharp end of the race the whole time, not to be leading the whole time but to always be in striking distance. Then when opportunities to score came I was supposed to take them and that’s what I did.”

Coach Richard Wooles was pleased with what he saw on the first day of racing “Zach’s first World Cup win in the points race is showing progression and the men’s team sprint showed areas of improvement. We are still mostly a development team and this is the time to figure out what works for the athlete’s preparation heading in to the next two seasons, which will count towards Olympic qualifying. Some of the athletes may have gone too hard in training in LA last week and learning how to adapt to a 16 hour time change and jet leg is important too.”

Day two of racing will get under way tonight at 11:30 pm EST and 8:30 pm PST with the following events:

Men’s Keirin: Travis Smith
Men’s Scratch: Zach Bell
Women’s Points Race: Tara Whitten and Stephanie Roorda
Women’s 500: Monique Sullivan
Men’s Kilo: Allan Leparskas in his World Cup debut.

Photo Gallery

Team Sprint 2

Team Sprint 1

Team Sprint 3

Tara Whitten

Tara Whitten - Podium IP

Zach Bell - 1 pts

Zach Bell Interview

Zach Bell - Podium