February 8, 2010 (London, ON) – Question: What do you get when you mix, an over flow crowd of spectators with 30% more racers, stir in over $800 in prizes and some very cool trophies? Answer: Intense, exciting, bicycle track racing with thrills and one spill at the Forest City Velodrome.

How the race day unfolded…
Ten hours of racing action in six divisions proved to be the winning formula for the Forest City Velodrome at the 2010 Tim Horton’s Winter Nationals. The 4-event Omnium included, a 3km time trial, 500m TT, 138m TT and an endurance race. The day-long competition made sure the competitors had to be fast and fit to make it to the top of the podium.

The FCV would like to thank Tim Horton’s retail outlets in London for their generous support of the day-long event. A sell out crowd had to park on the street and walk up to 1/2 a kilometre to get in to see the racing action. Then the preems started, in total over $300 was used to encourage the riders in every division to spice up the action.

There were several notable performances during the day. Cadet competitor, Kris Ovsenek (Invita-FCV) set the quickest time of 8.29 or 59.829 kph in sprint qualifying. Ovsenek was also 2nd behind Ryan Aitcheson (Jet Fuel Coffee) in the 500m event. Aitcheson demonstrated his early season fitness with a time of 3:40:38 in the 3k time trial. In the women’s division Amy Biskaborn (Village Cycles) was the only female racer to break the 9-second barrier in the Flying Lap. Biskaborn stopped the clock in 8.97 seconds or 56.4 kph. These achievements are even more remarkable when you consider the FCV had boiler issues that keep the temperature under 10 degrees C for most of the time efforts.

The Junior women put on some of the best racing of the day during the endurance races in front of 450+ spectators during the evening portion of the program. It was great to see Audrey Labrie and Laurence Paquette (Montreal), Danielle Mullis (Detroit) and new comer Heather Summers (Burlington) compete at the highest level in the junior women’s division. Florence Laplante-Lamarshe (Team Saputo), dominated the Jr. Women’s category with four wins in four Omnium events.

The future of Ontario cycling looks bright with the skill of the racers in both the Cadet and Junior men’s divisions. The Cadets were lead by speedsters Kris Ovsenek, Daniel MacKenzie-Picot (coachchris.ca) and Benny Perry, (St Catharines Cycle Club). All three young racers put on a great battle to finish 1st , 2nd , 3rd on the podium. The Juniors also had a 3-way boxing match, with John Carden (Invita-FCV), Justin Zottl (La Bicicletta) and Jason King (Invita-FCV). They had the gloves off the entire day especially in the Scratch race with Zottl launching many attacks only to be reeled in by eventual division winner John Carden.

The Elite women showed their stuff with very competitive racing and a break through for 1st year espoire Stephanie Bester (coachchris.ca) breaking onto the podium in 3rd position. Kimberly Edwards (CVC Subaru) finishing 2nd behind winner Amy Biskaborn (Village Cycle) one of many racers who had a tremendous day on the boards.

The two largest divisions racing at the Tim Horton’s Winter Nationals on Saturday night were the Masters and Elite men’s categories.

Two riders from London Cycles dominated the Masters division, Mike Nuttall and Lorne Falkenstein were both on form to finish on top of the podium. Close behind was Mike Renneboog (D’Ornellas) who was just coming off knee surgery to take the 3rd step on the podium.

In the Elite men’s category, Ryan Aitcheson came away with over $70 in preems and setting fast time of the meet in two of the four events. This was Aitcheson’s second major win of the winter. Aitcheson who in November out-sprinted 2009 National U23 Road Champion, Guillaume Boivin to win the 2009 CanAmQue Challenge. Hot on the heels of Aitcheson was long time FCV supporter Vince DeJong (coachchris.ca) who had a spectacular day of racing to finish 2nd overall. Ottawa’s Matteo Dal-cin who is no stranger to the boards at the FCV finished strong in the scratch race to take the third step of the podium.

A special presentation to honour one of the Forest City Velodrome’s volunteers (who was tragically killed in a traffic accident back in January) was made to the Velo-Kids who helped the show with some very entertaining races during the evening presentation.

What a fantastic day of bike racing. A special thank you to all of the volunteers at the FCV who make the races at the Velodrome run so smoothly.

Full results here.