October 15/11 22:23 pm - Sin & Plaxton Interviews - First Canadian Pan Am Medal Winners

Posted by Editor on 10/15/11
 

Amanda Sin and Max Plaxton are the first two Canadian athletes to win medals at the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, winning bronze and siver respectively earlier today in the women's and men's mountain bike races.  We have managed to speak with them briefly from Guadalajara.

Amanda Sin - Bronze, Women's Mountain Bike

"It was cool to win the first [Canadian] medal of the Games, I'm really happy to represent Canada here, and to reach my goal of winning a medal.  It was a good course and really challenging.  Heather [Irmiger, USA, gold medal winner] and I took off at the start.  I managed to stay with her part way up the first main climb, but she was climbing really well and got away.  The Mexican [Laura Lorenza Morfin] caught and droppped me on the second lap, and after that [fellow Canadian] Mikaela [Kofman] and I were back and forth for the rest of the race."


Max Plaxton - Silver, Men's Mountain Bike

"It was a good little Central American style course.  We had some rain earlier in the week, but it had dried up by the race so we were able to run dry tires.  The main thing was the long sustained, really steep climb, which was really tough, and not really my type of course, but it was a course that required fitness and I was feeling pretty good.  Before I came here I spent eight days at altitude in Colorado, which I think helped."

"Jeremiah [Bishop - USA], [Hector] Paez [Colombia] and myself gotaway by lap two, and Paez got a gap on lap four.  but I was able to attack and had maybe a five second lead going into the last climb.  Paez was able to get on my wheel, and about a minute from the top of the climb he made a huge attack, and I had nothing left to respond."

"But it's a nice way to finish the season, and I'm happy with this result."