June 24, 2010 (Mexico City, Mexico) – The Canadian women have had strong performances at the Junior Pan American Championships and Allison Beveridge (Calgary, AB), who has won a medal in almost every event she has raced in, is looking to continue the trend. Beveridge won the first three events on day one of the Omnium with the fastest flying lap in 14.935, gaining a commanding lead in the points race with 20 points over second and third place finishers who had an equal 9 points, and then won the newly integrated elimination race. Beveridge leads the first half the competition with 3 points, over Venezuelan Lilibith Chacon with 7 points and Chilean Carla Vallejos with 12 points.

Alex Cataford (Ottawa, ON) struggled through the first three events in the Men’s Omnium and is currently sitting in 5th place. Cataford still has a shot of winning the silver medal as the athletes currently in 2nd and 3rd place have 11 points, then the Canadian is tied in 4th place with 13 points.

Second year cadet Kristofer Ovsenek (London, ON), who is competing at his first international bike race, is impressed with the event. “We met a lot of great riders this week, the amount of talent and the level of racing is astonishing. Since the beginning of the week it has been very motivating seeing so many team members medal each day.” Ovsenek, who won a bronze medal in the Men’s Team Sprint, was looking for more hardware and rode an impressive 200 meters in 10.620, the third fastest time of the day. Mauricio Quiroga of Argentina had the fastest time of 10.303 followed by Alexander Quincy of Trinidad in 10.442. Ovsenek performed well in the sprint tournament, but could not match the speed of Venezuelan Willis Duque in the quarter finals. The Canadian was the fastest in the 5-8 final for 5th place.

Daniel McKenzie-Picot (London, ON) also competed in the sprint with the 9th fastest 200 of 10.939, but only raced in the first round of sprints. He then joined Patrick McGinley (Oakville, ON) for the Madison. After the week of hard racing, the high speed of the team event was faster then the Canadians could keep up with, but the experience gained by the two cadets is invaluable.

Racing concludes on Friday with Beveridge and Cataford in the Omnium and Florence Laplante-Lamarche and Audrey Labrie in the Keirin.