“Very proud of my amazing girlfriend Karol-Ann Canuel today. Three months (to the day) after breaking her pelvis, she smashes the women’s record up Haleakala, National park, Hawaii (the longest paved climb in the world). That’s perseverance.”
According to Strava Canuel’s time was 3:10:47 as recorded on Dec. 27, 2014 versus the previous record of 3:13:58 held by legendary Catharine (Kika) Pendrel, another Canadian and the reigning Elite Women’s MTB Worlds champ.
We contacted Pendrel who told Pedal: “I got the ‘QOM’ title while on vacation there in November. Unlike with Ryder [Hesjedal] and Mike [Woods] it was not really an “assault” on the mountain… so no news stories :-). We did not do it as a supported ride but packed our down jackets, winter gloves, bottles and park passes up with us.
Of course I couldn’t help going hard though! It was a super fun experience and I am happy Karol Ann gave me an excuse to get back to Maui next year! Glad to see she is fully mended after the road worlds crash and ready to have a stellar 2015.”
Canuel, 26, became the first Canadian to ever win a world champion title in road cycling as part of the Specialized-lululemon team that won the Elite Women’s team time trial (TTT) at the 2014 UCI Road Worlds in Ponferrada, Spain on September 21. She went on to finish sixth in the individual time trial (ITT) at Worlds.
The men’s record stands at 2:27:16 as established by Mike Woods (Optum p/b KBS in 2015) on Dec 12, 2013, previously held by Hesjedal (Garmin Sharp). Earlier this month Woods tried to beat his own record while in Hawaii for his wedding to Elly Robertson, but missed by a narrow margin as we reported earlier here.
Link to segment on Strava here.
Pedal joins the Canadian cycling community in congratulating Canuel.