April 03, 2019 (Lewisburg, PA) – Canadian riders from Queen’s University and McGill University took home victories, podiums and top results at the 2019 Bucknell Cycling Classic, round two of the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (ECCC) this past weekend in Lewisburg, PA – read about round #1 in Philadelphia here.

 

The weekend featured lots of head-to-head action with a TTT and road race on Saturday, followed by a Criterium on Sunday. Queen’s came out on top of the ECCC Team Omnium with 261 points while McGill was 7th with 110 points.

The highlight performance of the weekend was Queen’s Ryan Jonker, who won the Men’s A one-hour Criterium on Sunday by almost a two-minute margin over the main bunch.

During Saturday’s team time trial, the Queen’s Women’s A TTT squad, including Hannah Simms, Hanna Girndt, Rachel Blair, and Chloe Desroche, finished the 15.1km course in a time of 24:28:00 to land second on the podium behind rival Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Following closely behind in third were riders from Northeastern University.

Queen’s also saw success from their Men’s C TTT teams as Ben Ernewein, Lyle Porter, and Vincent Halis finished second in the event with a time of 23:00:00 with teammates Eric Yuyitung, Henry Dowd, and Avery Ling following shortly in third. McGill did not field any TTT squads.

During the road races later that afternoon riders faced a challenging course riddled with rolling hills and punchy climbs. Difficult cross-winds made it even more challenging for a breakaway group to escape from the bunch.

In the 80km Women’s A/B road races, Queen’s Simms, Blair, Girndt, and Desroche took to the field looking to continue their success from last weekend. The difficult course conditions proved tough for the field, as the main bunch was split up into multiple groups.

Desroche found herself in the lead pack, breaking away from the peloton with MIT riders in tow. Desroche and MIT’s Emma Edwards Edwards worked together until the finish where Edwards edged Desroche in the final sprint to take first overall in the Women’s A category.

In the Women’s B race McGill rider, Mary Hnatyshyn, established a commanding position to win with a massive seven-minute margin over her nearest competitor.

In the 96km Men’s A race Queen’s Adric Heney and Ryan Rudderham found themselves in a three-man break with fellow Canadian, Axel Froner of Neil McNeil high school, with 30km to go. The trio managed to  to stay away with the youngster, Froner, attacking Rudderham in the final kilometers for the win with Heney taking third on the day.

Back in the main group, Queen’s twins Andrew and Ryan Jonker were able to hold their own in the bunch sprint, taking fourth and fifth respectively. McGill was also able to take home a top-ten result with Nicolas Kleban slotting in a respectable 7th place finish.

In Men’s B, after a selfless and valiant effort by McGill rider, Jose Antonio, continued to reel in attacks before teammate Félix Fournier launched an attack of his own during the 1.5 km, 9% Sunrise Climb. Fournier and the rest of the riders in the break managed to hold off the main group, with the McGill rider out-sprinting the other riders for first place overall.

During Sunday’s circuit race, headwinds were the word of the day as riders faced a hilly 5km course that featured gravel roads and a hilltop finish.

Turning to the hour-long Men’s A event, Ryan Jonker took to the breakaway from the gun, followed by Penn State rider Noah Stauffer closely behind. The two worked together to stay away from the main group reaching a 1:50 gap. Jonker went on to drop the Penn State rider after the third lap, going solo for the remaining five laps to take the overall win. He now holds both the green and yellow jerseys after the weekend of racing.

In the Men’s B event, Félix Fournier stormed his way to a third-place result after chasing a two-man break towards the closing laps of the race. Teammates Adithya Lakshminarayanan and Jose Antonio did what they could during the race, ending up with finishes in the groups that formed after the field split.

In the Women’s A race, Desroche continued her success from the previous day, taking third overall behind riders from MIT the US Military Academy. Taking three out of the four primes in the event, Desroche still sits comfortably with the yellow and green jerseys in the overall standings.

To round things off, Lyle Porter took another podium spot in the Men’s C series, taking second in the sprint after breaking away with 7 other riders in the preliminary laps of the race.

After the weekend, Queen’s holds onto both yellow and green jerseys in both the Men’s and Women’s A fields, while McGill walks away with three stellar podium results. Both teams gear up for their last races of the season, which will be held at Dartmouth College this upcoming weekend.

Full Results can be found here.