April 26, 2008 – Pedal dropped by the BC Team’s 2008 photo shoot earlier this week to talk with Richard Wooles, Provincial Coach & High Performance Director, and some of the other coaches about what’s in store for this year, and more on the bold direction the BC Team is heading in.

The photo shoot was an impressive gathering with 40+ athletes from every discipline in attendance. The group consisted primarily of juniors and some espoirs, but also included a number of elite athletes in the BC program such as Gina Grain, Zach Bell and Cam MacKinnon. The athletes were all visibly excited about the program and what the year has in store. Jason Manning, a second-year road and track junior athlete put it well when he said, “It’s just cool to get the chance to work with people who share a common passion.” Manning is looking forward to the Tour de L’Abitibi this summer, which he hopes “will give us a bench mark of where cycling in BC is, and I think we’ll do pretty well, it’s just a great opportunity to race against the world’s top juniors.”

Richard Wooles
Wooles talked about the range of athletes in the program. “The group ranges from a 14-year-old junior that came 4th at Sea Otter, all the way up to Gina and Zach who just qualified for the Olympics. We’ve been able to gather some industry and financial support this year. Haywood Securities has been extremely generous in their support.”

“We will have 18 riders going to Canada Cups in downhill and cross-country. We’ve been able to help out some riders financially such as Matt Potma who is in France right now with the National Team, and both Cody Campbell and Evan Flatter will be going to the UCI centre and we are helping them out as well.”

Other projects for the year include a large pre-nationals BMX camp as well as selecting a team for Abitibi and committing to a schedule of proper preparation for that race including both US races and local races. Wooles pointed out that part of the challenge with local races is making sure to work with riders’ existing sponsors. However a BC team might compete at the Tour de White Rock. He pointed out that BC teams such as Avia-West and Trek/Red Truck Racing are supporting rider development in the province, and it’s important to make sure that they get a return on their support.

Wooles also expected to take a large group to the Junior National Track Championships as well. He summed up his vision by saying, “The goal is to take away barriers. If money is a problem, then let’s try and take it away. If coaching is the barrier, then we’ll take it away. Every rider in this program has access to free coaching.”

Dan Proulx
Dan Proulx brings years of experience to the youth program, having previously worked for both Pacific Sport and the Olympic Oval in Calgary. Proulx has quite a track record running youth programs – the Tri-Athletics program he started in the mid to late 90s is where National Team track riders Ryan McKenzie, Travis Smith, and road racers Laura McKenzie (Webcor), and Jenny Trew (Vanderkitten) all started out. Proulx has used tracks set up on grass fields to introduce a new crop of young riders to bike racing.

“We’ve had 230 kids from six schools playing track games on the grass, just to introduce them to bike racing. The schools have ranged from elementary to high school, and there has been quite a bit of interest on the North Shore. We’re piloting three schools in Burnaby for the grass track, and hope to get those kids out on the Velodrome soon.”

Steve Lund
Steve Lund is another coach that Wooles has brought into the program, capitalizing on Lund’s years of coaching top flight Canadian mountain bikers (including Pedal columnist Sandra Walter amongst others). While Lund has been focusing more on the cross country side of the sport, downhill is also included in his mandate, and he has been working with Shaums March to develop that aspect as well.

Lund is optimistic about the group of five cross-country athletes (plus a few downhillers) that BC will be taking to the early eastern Canada Cups, stating that a good number of the small team have legitimate chances of qualifying for the World Championships (which are early this year due to the Olympics). A larger team will contest the later western Canada Cup rounds.

Lund commented, “I’ve been involved for over a year now, and we never would have been able to get a group like this together two years ago. All of the kids are excited, and we know what we need to do to keep building on this. It is pretty amazing to see the talent we have right now in the U17’s, we have two U17’s who will compete as juniors on the Canada Cups – these kids are going to turn some heads in the next few years.”

Watch the Cycling BC 2008 Team Launch video…