February 23, 2004 – The riders who will make up the Canadian team for the CCA Espoir project this spring have been selected after a training camp at the Pacific Sport National Cycling Centre in Victoria, B.C. National coach Yury Kashirin and national espoir coach Jacky Hardy chose seven riders who will travel to Normandy, France for an intensive program of competition under the guidance of Hardy, a French former Tour de France rider recently hired by the CCA.

This will bring the total of Canadian espoirs racing in France to 12. Cameron Evans, 20, of Delta, B.C., Murray Carter, 21, of St. Anne, Manitoba, Francois Parisien, 21, of Repentigny, Quebec, Dominique Rollin, 21, of Boucherville, Quebec, and Marc Bomhof, 21, of Lethbridge, Alberta, have all already found spots with French clubs. Andrew Scott, 21, of Charlottetown, PEI, and Nathan St-Onge, 22, of Amherst, N.S. will also travel to France later this spring to race with a French club. The CCA plan had originally been to select six riders for the spring project, but Kashirin said the quality of the riders and the effort and dedication they showed at the camp justified the expense of sending the extra team member. Remarkably, four of the selected riders are from Atlantic Canada, and three of them train out of the Atlantic Cycling Centre in Dieppe, N.B., which was founded in 2001. This is a remarkable payoff after just three years. “This is really important for us,” said Atlantic Centre head coach Luc Arseneau of the growth in national team members from Atlantic Canada. “Four years ago Peter Wedge was the only one, basically. Since we got the centre its just been increasing and increasing.”

The European project espoir team is: Cory Jay, 21, Charlottetown, PEI Chris Isaac, 21, Newmarket, Ontario Bradley Fairall, 18, North Vancouver, B.C. Warren Tilbrook, 20, Fonthill, Ontario Jean-Luc Pilote, 18, Beresford, N.B. Dustin MacBurnie, 22, Truro, N.S. Christian Meier, 19, Sussex, N.B. Canadian cycling fans will remember that Cory Jay and Chris Isaac were both on the Canadian espoir team at the 2003 World Road Cycling Championships in Hamilton, while Christian Meier was on the junior team and Bradley Fairall was first alternate for the junior team.