September 29, 2017 (Milton, Ontario) – The 2017 Canadian Track Championships p/b Lexus for Elite and Masters athletes opened Thursday at the Mattamy National Cycling Centre in Milton, Ontario. While a few familiar faces appeared on the podium, there were also a number of newcomers donning the maple leaf jersey of national champion.

Six national titles were awarded in the Elite category for women and men, including four in the team events – the Team Sprint and Team Pursuit. In the Team Sprint, the composite squad of Lauriane Genest of Quebec and Tegan Cochrane of British Columbia took the women’s title with a time of 35.327 seconds, nearly two seconds faster than the second place composite team of Devaney Collier of Alberta and Jenna Nestman of British Columbia. The men’s competition was dominated by Equipe du Quebec, which contained three members of Canada’s national team, led by Rio Olympian Hugo Barrette, joined by Patrice St Louis Pivin and Joel Archambault. Their time of 44.693 was just over one second slower than the Canadian record, set at altitude in Mexico.

The Team Pursuit saw members of Canada’s Olympic bronze medal winning squad win the women’s title, with Allison Beveridge, Laura Brown, Katherine Maine and Annie Foreman-Mackey winning qualifying, and Jasmin Duehring substituting for Laura Brown in the gold medal ride. The team recorded a time of 4:29.936 for the final, approximately two and half seconds faster than silver medalists Laurie Jussaume, Ariane Bonhomme, Kinley Gibson and Sara Giovannetti, of the Cyclery-4iiii team from Ottawa. The men’s event saw development squad Team Race Clean (Bailey Simpson/Evan Burtnik/Derek Gee/Adam Jamieson) win the title after catching a composite team of Chris Ernst, Michael Foley, Ryan Roth and Ed Veal.

Two individual titles were also awarded in Elite competition, in the time trial events. Lauriane Genest (Equipe du Quebec) won the women’s 500 metre competition with a time of 35.337 seconds, finishing 1.216 seconds ahead of Tegan Cochrane (Cycling BC), with national road champion Allison Beveridge (Rally Cycling) third. In the men’s 1000 metre event, Adam Attwell (Cycling BC) won his first Elite title with a time of 1:06.678, finishing 0.283 seconds ahead of Ed Veal (RealDeal Racing), with Adam Reddy (Alete) winning the bronze medal.

The Canadian Track Championships continue on Friday and Saturday – click here for full results.