December 1, 2008 (London, ON) – For many watching a bicycle race means seeing the riders go past you on the road, then waiting an hour for the finishing sprint. At the Forest City Velodrome in London, ON the racing action is right in front of you, just feet away.

On Saturday night the 2008 CanAmQue Challenge had everything from the nail-biting drama of athletes going 64 kph, to the cat and mouse tactics of Olympic sprint races that you would have seen in Beijing. A total of 56 entrants from Ontario, Quebec, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania made the 2008 CanAmQue Cycling Challenge edition a hard fought battle.

How it unfolded

The Elite Sprint Tournament had 25 riders entered to take qualifying times around the 138m Velodrome (Bicycle Race Track). 17-year-old London High School student Allan Leparskas continued his spectacular season with a win in the Qualifying round of the tournament, by setting a fast time of 16.05 seconds. Joe Veloce (Fonthill) and Danielle DeFranceschi (Windsor) were the next two qualifiers.

During the 1st round of the tournament there were no upsets and the top eight advanced to round two with little problems. In the second round the excitement intensified with a near crash in Heat #4 when Jon Fraley, lost control of his machine at 65 kph “due to wheel shack” and clipped the retaining wall before gathering up his bike and continued on with a little road rash on his arm. Fraley eventually would advance through the rep’s only to come up against Leparskas in the round of 8.

The sprinting was brilliant all night with the favourites advancing after each heat. The final four were down to the fastest three out of four sprinters in Canada. In the semi-final Heat #1 the two Ontario Juniors were doing battle with 17-year-old Ryan Aitcheson (JetFuel Coffee) attacking Allan Leparskas (CoachChris.ca) with four laps to go. Aitcheson was not able to gain any advantage and in the final corner Leparskas accelerated over the top to win at the line by half a wheel. In the other semi-final Stephane Cossette (Team Quebec) played cat and mouse with Ontario’s Joe Veloce. The 5-lap dash came down to Cossette attacking over the top of Veloce, however he could not make the move work as Veloce accelerated to hold Cossette high in the final corner to advance to the final.

The final of the CanAmQue Sprint Tournament, came down to who was quickest and could take advantage of their opponent leading into the final lap. Both Veloce and Leparskas have raced and trained with one another many times in the past two years. The battle of wits came down to the final 200m in the race with both riders attacking at the same time, side by side with one lap to go. The Junior Leparskas turned on his afterburners and squeaked out a win by inches to capture the 1st prize and top step on the podium.

It was a great evening of sprinting with the crowd of 300 cheering as the riders came across the line congratulating each other for a job well done.

Final Sprint Results

1. Allan Leparskas (Ontario)
2. Joe Veloce (Ontario)
3. Stephane Cossette (Team Quebec)
4. Ryan Aitcheson (Team Jet Fuel)
5. Jon Fraley (Team USA)

On the endurance side of the night, the entertainment was the 138-lap feature race of the night. Racers competed in four separate 40-lap qualifying heats, with the top six riders from each heat race advancing to the semi-final where the riders were separated into two semi’s and again the top six from each race advanced through to the final. For the riders that failed to qualify they were given one last chance to make it through to the final where 14 riders would do battle to crown the Champion.

Early into the endurance event Team Quebec’s David Boily and four others (Meyer, DeFrancheschi, Aitcheson, Perlmutter) lapped the rest of the riders and without hesitation Boily proceeded to take a lap on his own. This move set up the rest of the event with riders attacking all night long to put the hurt on their competitors, but no one was able to get away to eat into Boily’s advantage. At the half way mark Ontario’s four riders attacked and bridged up to Boily. The four riders were Steve Meyer (CoachChris.ca), London’s Lisa Perlmutter (Forest City Velodrome) the only women to make the feature event, along with Jet fuel Coffee riders, Aitcheson and DeFranceshi. This attack put Aitcheson on the same lap as the leader Boily.

The two leaders were inseparable throughout the final 30 laps and in the end Boily of Team Quebec captured the gold medal in the feature 138-lap final out-sprinting Aitcheson at the line. DeFranceschi, Meyer and Perlmutter finished in 3rd, 4th and 5th, one lap down with the rest of the field finishing two laps down.

The crowd were on their feet again to thank the riders for one of the best nights of racing in the 4-year history of the Forest City Velodrome. Special thank you to all the riders who came out and race in the Women’s sprints and Cadet races. Some racers were participating in their first race night.

The next race will be on Saturday Dec 6 – the Ontario Madison Team Championships beginning at 7pm. More information can be found at www.ForestCityVelodrome.ca