July 2/08 3:27 am - Canada gets Madison Spot for Beijing

Posted by Editoress on 07/2/08
 

Although the official announcement will be made tomorrow regarding who the Madison team (CC Daily News: June 24/08 10:30 am EDT - Canada Likely to Get Madison Spot at Olympics) will be comprised of Beijing, the "cat is out of the bag" according to an article in the Vancouver Province. In a story about last night's Yaletown Grand Prix, won by Svein Tuft there is the following: ""I get motivated for this because it's a local race," he said. "My family is here and I look at it as a chance to put in a really hard effort and get some training. You gain a lot from stuff like this. If you ride all day on the front and hit it hard you get a lot of fitness from that," added Tuft, who got a measure of satisfaction Tuesday after finding out a few days ago that he won't get to race the Madison in Beijing.

Tuft and Symmetrics teammate Zack Bell earned Canada an Olympic Madison spot by winning the race -- a two-man track event -- at the Pan American championships earlier this year in Montevideo, Uruguay. But a Canadian Cycling Association committee voted 4-1 to select Montreal's Martin Gilbert instead of Tuft to ride with Bell in Beijing.

Read the entire article

Sean O'Donnell (CCA Manager of High Performance) had the following to say regarding the above underlined statements: "The qualifications for the Beijing Track events ended with the World Championships in Manchester UK in March. There was always the possibility of Canada getting a spot because some countries opt not to send a team and countries are then added according to their ranking after Worlds.

The vote was unanimous to send Gilbert."