Victoria Tripleshot cyclists gathered for their usual Tuesday morning ride starting at the Beacon Hill Park flagpole. There was more of celebratory tone to the usual grind as it was announced that two of them will ride all the way to Paris next month, in a manner of speaking.
Cycling Canada named its 2024 Olympic team with Victorians Erin Attwell and Sarah Van Dam to compete in women’s team pursuit.
“It’s not hit me yet. I couldn’t be more excited that 50 per cent of the [four-member Canadian women’s] pursuit team comes from Tripleshot,” said Attwell, a Pan Am Games silver medallist.
“It just says how amazing the program has been. We both started in the Fast Track program together at the Juan de Fuca Velodrome, which is a legacy of the 1994 Commonwealth Games hosted here. Honestly, I couldn’t have done it without that program. It’s amazing how many names from the Island have come out of that velodrome to Games [Olympic, Commonwealth and Pan Am] and world championships.”
Those Juan de Fuca Velodrome alumni include 2012 London Olympics bronze-medallist Gillian Carleton, 2020 Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Jay Lamoureux and 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games gold medallist Evan Carey. And now Attwell and Van Dam.
Canada is ranked fifth in the world in women’s team pursuit and near the lip of the Olympic podium.
“It’s so close. We’re predicted to be a medal potential team,” said Attwell, who has recovered from a knee injury after being hit by a car on McKenzie Avenue while out riding in September.
Named to the Olympic mountain bike team were siblings Gunnar and Isabella Holmgren, the latter who won the Canadian women’s cyclo-cross championship the last two years at Layritz Park. Holmgren, 19, is the youngest cyclist on the Canadian team and is from Orillia, Ont., but trains often on the Island supported by the off-road cycling community here that has produced Olympic mountain-bikers Alison Sydor, Catharine Pendrel, Roland Green, Andreas Hestler, Geoff Kabush, Kiara Bisaro and Max Plaxton.
The Canadian cycling team in Paris will be highlighted by Kelsey Mitchell of Sherwood Park, Alta., the former University of Alberta Pandas soccer player who will be out to defend her Olympic women’s sprint title from Tokyo, and veteran pro Michael Woods of Ottawa, who was fifth in the men’s road race in the delayed 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
