Each year we are privy to watching BC Superweek in the lower mainland as the riders travel as astounding speeds around the course, but this year in Delta (Ladner) on the Saturday we were fortunate to watch Para-Cycling.
Watching from the broadcast booth, I found it interesting that no one left the side of the track, but rather stayed and watched the entire race, cheering as loud as they would for the Tour de Delta.
Fast forward to the Para-Cycling World Championships in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa saw Canada “pedal away” with two medals – Gold and a Bronze.
Toronto’s Shelley Gautier took little time in grabbing the Gold medal in Women’s T1 time trial, while the Bronze medal went to Charles Moreau in the H3 men’s time trial.
No stranger to gathering a medal as Gautier remembered the Bronze she won at the Rio Paralympics last year and let’s not forget that she is Canada’s most decorated para-cyclist.
Competing in her seventh (7th) time trial world title it brought her total of Road (both time trial and road race) World Championship titles to 13.
She completed the 15.5 kilometre race in 38 minutes and 3.35 seconds, which saw her finish a short 5.11 seconds faster than Russian Para-Cyclists Yulia Sibagatova.
Gautier mentioned after the race “It feels magical and to have a team of people who all do the little things that help me and I’m really, really excited to be world champion, and I’ll treasure it and ride well wearing [the rainbow jersey] in the next year.”
Victoriaville Quebec’s Charles Moreau is a two-time Bronze Medalist in Rio, but this is extra special as it is his first World Championships medal.
He (Moreau) finished the 23.3 kilometre race with an outstanding time of 40 minutes and 22.98 seconds, 52.39 seconds behind Italy’s Paolo Cecchetto, who incidentally was the winner.
Alex Hyndman of Morpeth, Ontario, finished 11th, while Hawksbury Ontario resident Joey Desjardins finished three behind in 14th position.
Moreau told the media “It feels really good to get my first [Worlds] medal and this year being a post-Games year and me having a new baby – it’s been a year of ups and downs.”
He continued “So it’s been hard to work [train] consistently, and I was not sure what to expect at these first World’s after Rio, but today was a great experience, with a bigger field than in Rio, actually and I had a bit of stress at the start with some problems with my bike computer and I started a bit too strong. I had to slow my pace if I wanted to last the whole race, but I did well against some really experienced racers, and I’m really happy about that.”
