08.27.10 - Veterans Shine In Sprint Events At Track Cycling Nationals

Monique Sulliva, Travis Smith takes Sprint titles; Tara Whitten and Zach Bell dominates Points race

August 27, 2010 - The sun came out today at the National Cycling Centre in Bromont, QC as the best Canadian sprinters took to the track for the very exciting sprint events. Veteran track cyclists Travis Smith (Calgary, AB) and Monique Sullivan (Calgary, AB) took the Canadian titles in sprint races, while Zach Bell (Watson Lake, YK) and Tara Whitten (Edmonton, AB) dominated the sprints events.

All four riders will be representing Canada at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Dehli this October.

In the women’s event, Monique Sullivan easily qualified for the finals with some powerful racing through the qualifying rounds. In the gold medal duel, Sullivan faced Karine Côté and took the victory in the first two races of the best-of-three dual. Krista Ruby finished third.

The gold medal for Sullivan is her third consecutive National title in the event

“It’s very important to get a good seed in the qualifiers so hopefully your first rounds are easier and keep your fresh legs for the final rounds. In the quarterfinals and semi-finals, I rode conservatively and tried to work on some tactical things. In the finals, you don’t really want to take any risks, so I played it a bit safer,” said Monique Sullivan.

In the men’s races, Travis Smith continued to showcase his sprint domination. Smith won the National titles in the sprint event in every year he competed in since 2003, with the exception of one year missing the National championships race with an injury.

In the gold medal race, Smith took the young Stéphane Cossette in an exciting and tight finish in the first two duels. In both races, Cossette attempted a breakaway with less than 200m to go in the race, but Smith managed to come back from the outside in both races for the victory at the finish line.

“It started off good for me. I didn’t know what to expect with the weather we’ve had this morning. Once we’ve got into the sprint rounds, I was glad to see Stephane and Joe battling out. These two are good for the future of track cycling. In the finals, I just wanted to control the race, at my speeds and slowly accelerate at my pace. I wanted to force Stephane to go earlier in the second round, but he never did. I caught him in the last turn, and he did put a good fight,” said Smith.

POINTS RACE DOMINATED
In the Points race, where cyclists collect points throughout the long distance race, Tara Whitten and Zach Bell dominated the events, showing excellent tactical moves to outrace the competiton.

Whitten easily won the Women’s race with 80 points, in front of Stephanie Roorda (BC) with 46 points. Laura Brown (BC) took the bronze medal with 38 points. In the men’s race, Zach Bell scored 74 points, while Jean-Michel Lachance took the second silver medal with a total of 30 points, just one point in front of Cameron McKinnon of Moncton, New-Brunswick.

The 2010 Track Cycling National Championships continues tomorrow in Bromont with the presentation of the last Omnium races, as well as the Women’s 500m and Men’s 1000m. Zach Bell and Tara Whitten have taken impressive leads in the Omnium, and should ride away to victories tomorrow morning as the Elite portion the Canadian Nationals come to an end.