Canada wins team pursuit gold and overall World Cup title in Hong Kong
Feature photo: Allison Beveridge at the front during womens team pursuit heats against the United States on January 16, 2015 at the UCI Track World Cup in Hong Kong.
Canada took gold in women’s team pursuit at the final UCI Track Cycling World Cup event in Hong Kong on Saturday, winning the overall title for the 2015-16 season.
The team of Jasmin Glaesser, Laura Brown, Stephanie Roorda and Olympic skier-turned-cyclist Georgia Simmerling beat Great Britain for first place with a time of four minutes and 19.737 seconds. The Brits pedalled to a time of 4:20.034 for second place in the gold medal showdown.
In the previous round Canada had Roorda and Simmerling join recent World Cup omnium champion Allison Beveridge and Annie Foreman-MacKey to beat the United States by over three seconds for a shot at the final. On Friday, Canada had qualified third fastest for the heats using Brown, Foreman-MacKey, Roorda and Simmerling to set up the USA matchup.
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With 870 points from three World Cup rounds (300 points each for winning in Cali, Colombia and Saturday in Hong Kong, and 270 for coming second in Cambridge, New Zealand), the Canadian women are the overall team pursuit World Cup winners this season. The United States finished second with 736 points ahead of Great Britain (674).
Jasmin Glaesser (left) took silver in an individual points race on Friday, January 15 in Hong Kong at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup (Photo: Cycling Canada).
The deep Canadian pursuit team also includes Kirsti Lay, who raced with the squad in Cali and Cambridge. Lay, along with Glaesser, Beveridge and Brown won team pursuit gold at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games on their home track in Milton, Ontario. Canada is the current world and Olympic bronze medal holder in women’s team pursuit.
Individually, Glaesser won a silver medal in the women’s points race on Friday night, beaten by Jolien D’Hoore of Belgium with Britain’s Emily Nelson also sharing the podium.
In men’s keirin on Saturday, Hugo Barrette grabbed the second place medal behind Buchli Matthijs of Netherlands with Im Chaebin of South Korea finishing third.
