September 8, 2008 (Beijing, China) – Éric Bourgault of Orford, Que., and Jean Quévillon of Ste-Adèle, Que., posted Canada’s best results in para-cycling at the Paralympic Games on Tuesday with sixth place finishes in their respective kilo races at the Laoshan Velodrome.

In the men’s LC2 kilo, Jody Cundy of Britain won the gold medal in a world record 1:05.466 averaging 54.990 kilometres an hour. Jiri Jezek of the Czech Republic took the silver in 1:11.182 and Yuanchao Zheng of China was third in 1:11.198.

Bourgault, a below-knee amputee, took sixth spot in a personal best 1:14.387 averaging 48.395 kilometres an hour.

“It was one of my best-ever races in this event,” said Bourgault, 40, an engineer for Bombardier Recreational Products, who suffered his leg injury in a farming accident at age 16. “I had a great start to the race but probably lost it on the second lap. Still I was ranked seventh in the world coming in so it’s great to move up.”

In the men’s CP3 kilo, Darren Kenny of Britain broke the world record clocking 1:08.668 for the gold averaging 52.426 kilometres an hour. His compatriot Rik Waddon took the silver in 1:11.161 and Tomas Kvasnicka of the Czech Republic was third in 1:17.670.

Quévillon, who won a bronze medal Sunday in the individual pursuit, took sixth spot in 1:21.348 and Brayden McDougall of Calgary was seventh in 1:22.780.

Mark Breton of Charlesbourg, Que., was 14th in the kilo in the LC1 class.

In the women’s 3,000-metre individual pursuit for visually impaired Geneviève Ouellet of Amos, Que., and her guide Mathilde Hupin of Bromont, Que., placed seventh in qualifying and did not advance to the final four. Still they clocked 3:54.909, a nine second improvement on their previous best performance set last year at the Pan Am Championships in Colombia.

“We are pretty happy with the time but we’re still learning,” said Ouellet, a former national team Paralympic swimmer. “We went out too fast and lacked energy at the end of the race. Our strategy initially was to average 18 seconds per lap but by the final laps we were into the 19-second splits.”

Competition continues Wednesday.