July 3, 2008 — The CCA announced the official Canadian track team selected to the Beijing Olympics today. In addition to Gina Grain (Burnaby, BC) and Zach Bell (Watson Lake, Yukon) who were virtually assured spots for the points races, Martin Gilbert (Chateauguay, Quebec) will compete with Bell in the Madison. All three athletes were present in a phone conference along with BC Provincial coach, Richard Wooles, whom the CCA has contracted as Olympic Track Coach – not surprising as given he’s been heavily involved with both Grain and Bell’s training – and Sean O’Donnell, as well as a variety of journalists.

O’Donnell commented at the press conference that “this is an experienced team, all three have World Cup competition experience, and are very familiar with the athletes they will be competing with in Beijing.”

Bell spoke briefly about his road to Beijing, and now in his 6th year in the sport, the former Watson Lake resident got involved with track cycling while at the University of Calgary, after having been a freestyle wrestler for ten years. While he doubted there was a large physical cross over from wrestling to cycling, he did note that the sport had prepared him with a focus and work ethic for when he entered cycling, and that “wrestling matches are 5-6 minutes, the same mental period of focus as the pursuit”, and event in which Bell found his initial successes.

Grain on the other hand was already a seasoned cyclist by the time she was exposed to the track, having been a mountain biker before becoming a professional road racer. It was her former road team Victory Brewing that first exposed her to the Velodrome at Trexlertown in 2004 – the same year she won her first national title! Grain noted that “the two sports cross over really well, a sold road base and miles are critical for the track.”

O’Donnell was asked what his realistic expectations of the team capabilities are, “Both Zach and Gina are top-8 performers in the points race, and on a good day they could contend for a medal. In the Madison we are going in eyes wide open. The Beijing Games are at a good time of year for us to prepare. It’s very hard in winter for our athletes to prepare, since we don’t have a suitable indoor facility, so our athletes need to travel elsewhere. We are going to go to Beijing with our eyes wide open, with proper preparation, and see what we can do.”

When asked about their previous Madison experience – Bell and Gilbert raced together at the Beijing round of the Track World Cup in Dec. 2007 – Bell noted that the announcement was very new to them as well, and that they needed to talk about as how best to prepare for the Games.

“The Point race is my primary goal, but they are very similar events. I’ve known about preparing for the points race for some time now, but we’re still in the very early stages with the Madison,” commented Bell, who noted that with the points race on Aug. 16, and the Madison on Aug. 19, he should have plenty of time to recover between events.

Gilbert was asked about his previous Madison experiences, and he commented that Bell and he had raced two World Cups together as well as the Beijing event. “Beijing was not the best race for us, but if we are both in good form at the right time we can race very well together.”

When asked about the potential destruction of the Victoria Velodrome, O’Donnell, who’d previously mentioned the lack of facilities in Canada, said that, “when the UCI moved track to a winter sport we knew it would impact our competitiveness internationally. It makes it difficult to prepare adequately. Our athletes make sacrifices to be able to train at the highest level. There is not a suitable indoor velodrome that we can go to when the weather is poor or when it’s high competition time.” Gilbert added that the Beijing track itself is very nice, but the air quality was indeed as bad as had been reported, especially inside the track itself – however he is optimistic it will be better by the time of the Olympics.

The Madison team was asked if their trade teams were supportive of their Olympic endevours, to which Martin noted that his squad, Kelly Benefits/Medifast, “was very happy with my selection, and it will be easy to get the time for the preparation I want.” For Bell, “I have been working with the team of my schedule for some time, so there is no conflict there, Symmetrics has played a very supportive role. They gave me opportunities when I needed them for prep such as Beauce and Philly Week. The team is 100% about the Olympics for both Svein and I.” Bell also noted that his shoulder injured in Australia has been holding up well. “It has been good, I haven’t had any major problems with it for about 6-8 weeks since the injury. The strength in hand slings is good, and I’m pretty happy about that,” he added.

The need to have an indoor velodrome in Canada to serve as an optimal training center became a focus of the press conference, with conversation drifting to the cost of building one, and the difficulties of securing federal and municipal assistance (as well as the likely reality that such a facility would have to be a multi-sport facility).

Wooles noted that this is one of the fundamentals missing in the equation for Canadian track cycling, noting that there are 30 potential medals at the Olympics on the track, but without such a facility Canada is currently far from world class. (Wooles contacted us to clarify there are 30 potential medals not 13 as we originally indicated – Sprint M x 3; Sprint W x 3; Keirin M x 3; Pursuit M x 3; Pursuit W x 3; Points M x 3; Points W x 3; T Pursuit M x 3, Madison M x 3; Team Sprint M x 3)

There was some discussion that the current Pam Am games bid in Ontario might be a potential legacy project for an indoor velodrome. It was also noted that internationally there are currently eight tracks world wide slated to be completed by 2010.