Velodromes have historically been the white elephants of any set of summer Games. For instance, the 1976 Olympic velodrome is now the Montreal Biodome, a natural sciences museum.
But the hard-won fight a few years ago by the Island cycling community to save the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games velodrome, now known as the Westshore Velodrome, has paid off with its third international Games medal for Canada.
Jay Lamoureux of Victoria won bronze with the Canadian men’s track pursuit team Thursday at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
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That follows the bronze medal by Victoria track cyclist Gillian Carleton at the 2012 London Olympics and gold medal by Evan Carey of Oak Bay at the 2015 Toronto Pan American Games.
The Toronto Pan Am Games velodrome, in Milton, Ont., is also avoiding the white elephant label by paying handsome dividends. Lamoureux, a 22-year-old who ran middle-distance track and cross-country at Oak Bay High before switching to cycling on the Westshore Velodrome, is centralized with the national track cycling team in Milton.
Centralization appears to be helping the world No. 8 Canadian squad, as it moved up to the podium from its fourth-place finish at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
“Huge night for the program,” tweeted Lamoureux, who switched from running, and accessed cycling through the Victoria Tripleshot program.
“More than overjoyed to come away with bronze.”
The Canadian team of Lamoureux, Derek Gee, Michael Foley, Aidan Caves and Adam Jamieson beat Wales in the bronze-medal race. Australia won with a world-record time in the gold-medal race against England.
“One spot better than four years ago, and 13 seconds faster, so everyone’s really excited about that,” Gee said.
“It’s just unreal to be a medalist at the Commonwealth Games.”
Lamoureux, a well-rounded young man who played in the Oak Bay jazz band, is also adept on the asphalt and will contest the road race and road time trial later in the Commonwealth Games.
But it is on the track that the Islander sees his best path to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. For that, he can give a shoutout to both the Westshore and Milton velodromes for affording him the boost he needed.
The Milton-based Canadian women’s team also won bronze Thursday in the track team pursuit behind winner Australia and silver-medallist New Zealand.
Canada’s opening day in the pool was highlighted by Taylor Ruck’s gold medal in the women’s 200-metre freestyle in a Canadian-record 1:54.81. The 17-year-old sensation also anchored Canada to silver in the women’s 4x100 freestyle relay.
“Putting down performances like this is really important to see where I am at this point going towards the next Olympics,’’ Ruck said. “I’m really excited with the process.”
The host Aussies set a world record in the 4x100 freestyle relay in 3:30.05 to Canada’s second-place 3:33.92.
Ruck is an example of how hard it is to ascertain where Canadian athletes “are from.” She was born in Kelowna, but raised in Phoenix from a young age, and is now centralized at the Swim Canada high-performance centre in Toronto.
Two swimmers centralized in the high-performance centre at Saanich Commonwealth Place, Jeremy Bagshaw and Sarah Darcel, opened at the Games by making finals Thursday. Bagshaw, a St. Michaels University School graduate studying at UVic to become a doctor, was fifth in the men’s 400-metre freestyle and Darcel eighth in the women’s 400-metre IM.
Bagshaw was an NCAA Pac-12 medallist at Cal-Berkeley, which is where the freshman Darcel swims now.
Bagshaw also has the men’s 200-metre freestyle and 4x200 freestyle relay ahead in Gold Coast.
“I’m looking for best times, and then seeing how it goes, towards Tokyo 2020 [next Summer Olympics],” said the SMUS grad.
The 21st Commonwealth Games run through April 15 in Gold Coast.
Among Canada’s 283 athletes competing, 52 are from the Island or live and train here full-time. There have been two bronze medals so far from Island athletes — Lamoureux and mountain biker Joanna Brown — after the first two days of the Games.
