July 12, 2008 (Cape Town, SA) – The 2008 Junior Track and Road Cycling World Championships is underway in Capetown South Africa where 60 nations have gathered at the most southern tip of Africa to take part. The Track competitions are slated to take place this weekend and into the week while Road and Time Trials will take place next weekend.

Today was the first day of the competitions and it featured 17 year-old Ryan Aitcheson of Kitchener, Ontario contesting the Junior Men’s 3km Pursuit and 18 year-old Laurie-Anne Dupont-Renaud of Montreal, Quebec in the Women’s 7.5km Scratch Race.

Aitcheson is participating in the Pursuit, the Points Race and the Omnium for Canada. He’s had a meteoric rise only starting to race on the track last August after three years of competitive mountain biking. “A friend from the bike shop I was working at, suggested I should try out track racing. He was really into it and used to mountain bike like me. I liked it right away and raced almost every weekend last winter,” said Aitcheson. He rode well in the pursuit on Saturday placing 21st with a time of 3:37.39. Aitcheson also had the distinction of having the 5th best time amongst all first year juniors.

The overwhelming favorite for the men’s 3000m Pursuit was American Taylor Phinney, who had won the Los Angeles stop of the track world cup in January against the top senior riders in the world. Two weeks later he set the new World Junior record in Los Angeles. Phinney set the fastest qualifying time at the Belleville Velodrome in Cape Town with a time of 3:20.26. His time was more then two seconds faster then second placed Dennis Rohan of Australia. In the medal round Phinney won with a time of 3:23.759 over Dennis Rohan of Australia who turned in a time of 3:27.422. Jason Christie of New Zealand turned in a time of 3:29.987 to place third.

Dupont-Renaud is competing in the Scratch Race, Pursuit, and Points race for Canada. Racing since she was 9 years old she’s a well-rounded rider capable doing well at all three events. Her first test was today’s Women’s 7.5km scratch race which was hard from the gun and was riddled with two bad crashes – the first took out two riders along the back-stretch and the second took out another third of the field in the second corner. Dupont-Renaud was well positioned at the front during both of these crashes and avoided going down. She rode well to finish 4th, one step shy of the podium at her first major international race. Megan Dunn of Australia took the win, with Gemma Dudley of New Zealand placing second and Colleen Hayduk of the USA rounding out the podium in third.

Canada’s Junior National Track team coach at this year’s Junior Worlds is Alberta Provincial Coach Jayson Gillespie. “I’m very excited about our chances this year,” said Gillespie. “Ryan is still a first-year Junior, so he has the opportunity to gain a lot of experience this year with an eye towards a medal next year, Laurie-Ann is really strong right now, so I’m excited about her prospects. I’m disappointed that Cody Campbell couldn’t join us because of his crash at the Worlds training camp, but I know he’ll bounce back and be stronger then ever.”

The competition continues tomorrow with the women’s Individual Pursuit, men’s Keirin, Team Pursuit and women’s Team Sprint.

2008 Canadian World Junior Cycling Championship Team

Men’s Road
– Ryan Aitcheson – Kitchener, Ont
– Devon Novakowski – Kingston, Ont
– Hugo Houle – Drummondville, QC
– William Garneau – Quebec City, QC
– Simon Lambert Lemay – Montreal, QC
– Cody Campbell – Surrey, BC – not attending because of injury
– David Larson – Edmonton, AB

Men’s Time Trial
– Hugo Houle – Drummondvillem QC
– Devon Novacowski – Kingston, Ont

Men’s Track
– Ryan Aitcheson – Kitchener, Ont
– Cody Campbell – Surrey, BC – not attending because of injury

Women’s Road
– Denise Ramsden – Kingston, Ont
– Leah Kirchmann – Winnipeg, MB
– Laurie-Anne Dupont-Renaud – Montreal, QC
– Jessica Kissell – Strathmore, AB

Women’s time trial
– Denise Ramsden – Kingston, Ont
– Leah Kirchmann – Winnipeg, MB

Women’s Track
– Jessica Kissell – Strathmore, AB
– Laurie-Anne Dupont -Renaud -Montreal, QC