May 21, 2007 – The 2007 Pan American Championships begin today in Venezuela, and run from May 21-27. The track events open the competition with the men’s sprint event. Canada has an 11-member team at the Games, with athletes competing on the track in both the men and women’s sprint and endurance events, as well as men’s (elite and U23) road events. The track events are scheduled for May 21-24 while the road races take place May 25-27.

Racing on the track are Zach Bell and Gina Grain of B.C., Ryan McKenzie, Cam MacKinnon and Monique Sullivan of Alberta and Martin Gilbert, Lawrence Leroux and Yannick Morin of Quebec.

For the road events, Canadian team members are Bell, McKenzie, Gilbert, Grain as well as Quebec racers Charles Dionne, Keven Lacombe and David Veilleux.

The CCA has chosen to only send athletes that it believes can podium, with CCA High Performance Director, Kris Westwood, stating, “all the selected athletes can win a medal.”

Pedal spoke with Westwood last week about the importance of these events, both road and track, as Canadian athletes head towards Beijing. Talking about the men’s road events Westwood commented that, “there are a lot of points available, and this is the highest point scoring event we’re likely to perform well at. We have a higher potential of scoring points here than say Georgia.”

“In terms of the track, the points opportunities are just below the World Cup, so they’re very important in terms of Olympic qualification, though the event no longer carries an automatic spot as it has in past years.” Westwood also mentioned that Canada is no longer eligible for B-Worlds, which in past Olympic cycles has been an important potential qualification route for Canadians.

“The qualification process can be a bit arcane at times, it makes it tough for us to plan strategically, with our limited resources we need to pick certain scenarios to focus on.”

One of the surprises to emerge from the Burnaby trials was the addition of a men’s Team Sprint squad. “We were pleasantly surprised with the guys performances at the trials. We set fairly exacting standards and were happy to see riders stepping up. We’d stated that if a team was competitive we would send it.” This is a positive development for the sprint program, and Westwood commented that; “This is a better situation than before as Travis will likely race for his pro team internationally next year, so we potentially will have four athletes competing at world cups, and the top four riders are what counts towards our nations standings.”