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Canada Wins Team Relay at 2015 UCI Amateur Road World Cycling Championships + Two ITT Bronze Medals – Report, Results

by pedalmag.com

September 04, 2015 (Aalborg, Denmark) – Team Canada 2 took home a big win in the Team Relay in Aalborg on Friday evening at the 2015 UCI Amateur Road World Cycling Championships, as Bruce Bird, Calah Wright, David Gazsi and Ron Amos powered to victory over Team Poland 2 and Team Belgium 1.

Team Relay podium with Canada winning gold  ©  UWCT

According to the rules each Team Relay squad must consist of one female rider any age; one rider any age; one rider age 40+; one rider age 50+.

“We did it Benjamin,” wrote Bird in an email. “Myself, Calah Wright, David Gazsi and Ron Amos in that order of the 4-person team relay finished 1st out of 25 teams from around the globe…Go Canada!

“The format was each rider compiles three laps around the 1.8km course in the heart of Aalborg, Denmark. Each team’s second rider can’t start until the first finishes etc.,” explained Bird.

While the Team Relay isn’t an official World Championships in 2015, yesterday’s 19.3km Time Trial and Saturday’s 115/160.7km Road Races are rainbow jersey races and Canada is off to a good start as Wright won TT bronze in the F19-34 category while Amos won the same colour medal in the M50-54 event.

“Yesterday in the Time Trial both Calah (F19-34) and Ron (M50-54) took home bronze medals in their respective categories. The road race is on Sunday,” added Bird.

It was at the 2014 Amateur Road Worlds in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where Bird captured the rainbow jersey in the 157km M45-49 road race and decided to bring the UWCT to Canada where no qualification event had existed to earn a spot at the Amateur Worlds.

Bird spearheaded Ontario’s Grey County Road Race, now part of the UCI World Cycling Tour (UWCT) for 2015, which debuted in late May and by all counts was a huge success as more than 100 qualifying riders have chosen to make the trip to Denmark to represent Canada at the Amateur Worlds.

According to Erwin Vervecken, former CX Worlds champ and part of the organization and marketing firm behind the UWCT, “This represents more than 50 percent of all qualifying riders, meaning the Grey County Road Race has the highest ratio of qualifiers to Worlds participants, with the exception of the host country.”

Stay tuned for more from Denmark.

TT results here
Team Relay results here.





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