01.14.11 - PARA: Training Camp in Florida

Thanks to Sport-Canada and the CCA’s CTO Jacques Landry, the Canadian Para-cycling team is able to do a first preparation camp leading up to the Track World Championships in Italy in March. After a grueling 37 hours drive for the coaches, we met our 14 athletes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday the 17th. The typical Florida weather was waiting for us, as we escaped Canada’s cold winter!

After the usual bike set up, athletes road to the Brian Piccollo Park, home of a 333m concrete velodrome. The track, being slower than a wooden one, will give us strength and speed to be carried on an indoor surface, for our second training camp in Portugal, in February.

As Jaye Miley says, «It has been awesome since day one. As with every training camp new friendship have been made, skills fine tuned and strength increased. I can definitely feel my body getting used to the intensity and time on the bike and with that comes the ability to perform at the highest level possible. With the 2011 Track World Championships just around the corner I am starting to feel that I will be better prepared to be the best that I can be and based on the energy from my team mates at the camp I sense they feel it to».

Athletes have been doing motor pacing, specific intervals and base endurance road rides to better their Track preparation. Athletes are fit and ready to perform as this camp is helping boost the batteries and their motivation before another six weeks on the Computrainer!

(2nd row: Matthieu Parent, Luc Dionne, Lyne Bessette, Alexandre Cloutier, Alexandre Carrier, Eric Bourgault, Jaye Milley/ 1st row : Robbi Weldon, Daniel Chalifour, Émilie Roy, Geneviève Ouellet, Marie-Claude Molnar, Brayden MacDougall)