April 4, 2011 (London, ON) – Eighteen month’s ago, Mary Kelly, one of the FCV’s top volunteers lost her life in a traffic accident.  To honour Mary, the FCV executive wanted to do something special to remember her contributions to the cycling track in London. The Mary Kelly Memorial was born and Saturday night was the second annual edition of the Memorial 100 lap feature for women.

There were many support races, however, the featured event was the 100 lap endurance race for women.  A solid field of women racers came from accross Canada & the United States to contest the event.

It appeared as though the racers were very nervous as the riders were introduced to the 3rd largest crowd of the season at the Velodrome. 10 laps into the affair, the group was all together, everyone was taking their turn on the front, however, no one was in the mood to show their hand too early. Several spectators and supporters of the FCV put up preems for the women. As the race approached 1/4 distance, the announcer ignited the field and the race was on…. “$100.00 for the first women to lap the field”. Seconds later the field was shredded and we were down to the 5 riders who would contest the last 50 laps of the race.

Krista Ruby (La Bicicletta), Sarah Rasmussen (Hamilton Cycling Club) were the 2 riders who went to the front and controlled the middle stages of the race. No one was allowed to gain more than 15m without the other riders shutting down all attempts to lap the field and pocket the $100.00 preem. A $20.00 preem from the infield was scooped up by Sarah Rasmussen. Rasmussen then attacked hard with 20 laps to go with all the remaining women closing the gap and bringing the race back together for a final rush to the line.

With 10 to go, Stephanie Bester (coachchris.ca) and Kim Edwards (CVC Subaru – USA) were on the front making sure the pace was high enough that there could not be an attack by the only sprinter left in the field, Candice Vermeulen (INvita-FCV). The race came down to 4 laps to go. The women were very antsy, however, no one wanted to go long as they knew the racers with more endurance would close the gap and ride on to the win. The crowd was cheering for their favourite, when with 3 laps to go, the pace slowed just for a fraction of a second and like a cat Vermeulen attacked over the top from the back and immediately put 10m into the surprised group. Now with 2 to go the lead for Vermeulen was 20m and the victory was in hand. The battle ensued for 2nd with Ruby and Bester taking it to the line with Krista Ruby edging Stephanie Bester by .030 seconds the wideth of a tire for second.

Finishing order

– First …… Candice Vermeulen
– Second .. Krista Ruby
– Third ….. Stephanie Bester
– Fourth … Sarah Rasmussen
– Fifth ……. Kimberley Edwards
– Sixth …… Sarah McKenzie-Picot
– Seventh.. Hedvig Salamon 


In other race action, the youngest madison pair (in the country, maybe the world) took to the boards in the “B” madison. 12 year old’s Lucas Taylor (London) and Logan McIntyre (Teeterville) finished a very respectible 4th (minus 2 laps) in their first madison race. The pair had been practicing for the last 2 months and just got the exchanges (handslings) mastered about a week ago. When the pair made their first exchange the crowd errupted as many of our long time spectators know how difficult it is to make nice clean exchanges.

Complete race results from a very entertaining evening of racing can be found here.

For more information about programs at the Forest City Velodrome, please visit our website: www.ForestCityVelodrome.ca