04.05.12 - CANADA’S MEN’S TEAM SPRINT NARROWLY MISSES OLYMPIC BERTH

2012 UCI Track World Championships underway in Australia

(Melbourne, AUS – April 4, 2012) Canada’s Men’s Team Sprint squad narrowly missed their Olympic qualification, finishing in 11th place at the 2012 UCI Track World Championships in Melbourne, Australia.

The Canadian sprint team comprised of Travis Smith of Calgary, AB, Joseph Veloce of Fonthill, ON and Hugo Barrette of Sherbrooke, QC posted a time of 45.192 seconds in this last Olympic qualifying race.

“We were planning to come here and get a Top 10. I felt like I had a pretty bad last lap, said Travis Smith. “This year we were dealing with a lot of new guys, and I had an injury in August where I was in the Intensive Care Unit for a week. The race here wasn’t horrible. We have room to improve.

Hugo Barrette added: “It was quite disappointing. We showed up pretty good tonight, and we gave all we had. Venezuela was too much ahead of us coming here. Personally, my ride went quite well. I can’t ask for much better, I am just starting to race internationally. It doesn’t matter what your individual time is, at the end it’s the team’s time that matters, and today we weren’t fast enough.”

Unfortunately for the Canadians, their main competitor for the last Olympic spot, Venezuela, placed ahead, taking the eighth place to secure their berth for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Racing in Melbourne resumes tomorrow with the women’s sprint qualifiers, the women’s team pursuit, the women’s points race and the start of the men’s omnium. Monique Sullivan of Calgary, AB will compete in the sprint races, while the Canadian record holding team of Tara Whitten of Edmonton, AB, Jasmin Glaesser of Coquitlam, BC and Gillian Carleton of Victoria, BC will partake in the team pursuit. Glaesser will also race the points race. Canada’s Zach Bell, who grew up in Watson Lake, Yukon and currently lives in North Vancouver, BC, will race the omnium.

With files from CanadianCyclist.com