March 01, 2018 (Apeldoorn, Netherlands) – Team Canada had a good start to the 2018 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, on Wednesday, with both the Women’s and Men’s Team Pursuit squads qualifying in the top eight countries for the next round of competition. Jasmin Duehring also competed in the women’s Scratch Race, finishing seventh.

The women’s Team Pursuit squad of Allison Beveridge, Ariane Bonhomme, Annie Foreman-Mackey and Steph Roorda qualified fifth with a time of four minutes and 24.071 seconds. While the time was fast enough to put them through to the next round of competition, finishing outside of the top four means that the best they can hope for is bronze. The United States qualified first with a time of four minutes and 18.836 seconds.

“It wasn’t a great ride, but not a bad ride,” admitted Craig Griffin, Women’s Track Endurance Coach. “They put in a good 2500 metres, which went to plan. We just lost Ariane a bit earlier than we thought, and then we had to go into conservation mode to get the group home. I know we’ll do better tomorrow; the girls are fired up and ready to give it a go. So, fingers crossed that we can get into the top four and have a run at a medal.”

In the men’s Team Pursuit, Canada was the second team to ride, setting a strong time that was only 0.584 seconds over four minutes. The time held up until the ninth team – former world champions Denmark – became the first to go under four minutes, and Canada just squeaked into the top-8 teams that moved onto the next round of competition. In the Round 1 competition later in the evening Canada went up against multi-time Olympic and world championship medalists New Zealand and, despite starting strongly, failed to advance to the medal round, finishing eighth overall.

“I think they did pretty well,” said Jono Hailstone, Men’s Endurance Coach. “It was definitely a PB [personal best] for them as a one team on the track situation. I think it’s a really good sign that going into Olympic qualifying we are ranked in the top-8 in the world; it’s a pretty good starting point. We have a unique opportunity that comes once a year to see how you stack up against the rest of the world. For the second race, we just decided to go out there and attack it, and see where that put us.”

In the women’s Scratch Race, Duehring rode conservatively until the final eight laps, when she began to move up aggressively through the field. Unfortunately, she ran out of laps before she could make it to the leaders.

“It was a hard Scratch Race, and unfolded pretty much as I expected it would,” said Duehring. “I just missed the counter [attack] and waited that second too long and got caught behind some gaps. I’m really frustrated with my performance and it feels like a missed opportunity tonight.”