March 02, 2018 (Apeldoorn, Netherlands) – Canada finished just off the podium on Day 2 of the UCI Track World Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, on Thursday, with the women’s Team Pursuit squad finishing fourth.

After struggling on Wednesday in the qualifying round, the team of Allison Beveridge, Ariane Bonhomme, Annie Foreman-Mackey and Steph Roorda put in a strong second ride to qualify for the bronze medal race against Italy. For the first 2000 metres the teams swapped the lead back and forth, before the Canadians faded slightly to finish with a time of four minutes and 23.216 seconds, 3.214 seconds back. The United States won the gold medal.

“Our first ride yesterday was a little rough around the edges,” admitted Foreman-Mackey, “so we came back ready to fight in the next round and I think we can feel pretty proud of that ride. Obviously, we want to be on the podium, so it’s a little bit of a tough pill to swallow. We can look at these performances and figure out what we need to change for the Commonwealth Games in a few weeks.”

In the men’s Keirin, Hugo Barrette had his strongest ever world championships result, finishing tenth overall. Barrette won a Repechage heat to make the second round, but came up one hundredth of a second short in making the medal final.

“One hundredth of a second!” said Barrette. “I definitely had the legs today, but I just mismanaged the semifinal; it was my mistake, I went too early. It bit me at the end of the race and I had to settle for the 7-12 final. I’m not happy with the result, but I’m happy with my legs.”

The final Canadian to compete was women’s sprinter Amelia Walsh, who qualified 26th with a time of 11.383 seconds.  Walsh went up against Shanne Braspennincx of the Netherlands in the 1/16th round, the seventh fastest qualifier and was knocked out of the competition.

Results here.