September 17/14 12:22 pm - Cycling Canada Announces Road Worlds Team

Posted by Editoress on 09/17/14
 

Cycling Canada will be sending a small but strong team to the 2014 UCI Road World Championships, taking place in Ponferrada, Spain from September 22nd to 28th.

The number of athletes Canada is allowed to enter in the road races is determined by the UCI qualification process. In addition, based on the national coaches' assessment of our athletes' current performance levels, Cycling Canada has opted to not fill all of the available positions.

The philosophy behind this decision is to only nominate athletes to the world championships team who have shown they can contribute to Canada's performance objectives, as laid out in Cycling Canada's selection criteria. For Elite athletes, this assessment has been made through performances at events on the international calendar. For the Junior athletes, Cycling Canada hosted development projects in Belgium prior to the Worlds in order to gauge the athletes' fitness, skill and ability to work as a team.

In addition, several athletes have declined selection to the world championship team due to conflicts with their trade team preparation programs, commitments to the track program or other personal commitments. For example, Svein Tuft has opted out of the Elite road race in order to focus on preparing for the individual time trial and team time trial.

It should be noted that Canada's U23 athletes did not score enough ranking points to qualify for an entry in the road race, so Cycling Canada is not sending any U23 men to Ponferrada.

In the interests of developing our talent pool for future world championships, Cycling Canada will continue to host road development projects for Elite, U23 and Junior athletes in 2015. In addition, the close alignment with our track endurance programs will give athletes further opportunities to develop the fitness and skills to shine on the world stage.

Elite Women
Joëlle Numainville (road race) - 26, Laval QC
Karol-Ann Canuel (time trial and road race) - 26, Gatineau QC
Leah Kirchmann (time trial and road race) - 24, Winnipeg MB

Elite Men
Svein Tuft (time trial) - 37, Langley BC
Christian Meier (road race) - 29, Langley BC
Michael Woods (road race) - 27, Ottawa ON
Ryan Anderson (road race) - 27, West Vancouver BC

Alternate: Guillaume Boivin (road race) - 25, Longueuil QC

Junior Women
Dafné Théroux-Izquierdo (time trial and road race) - 18, Ste-Thérèse QC
Laurence Dumais (road race) - 17, St-Jérôme QC
Emeliah Harvie (road race) - 16, Banff AB
Sara Poidevin (road race) - 18, Canmore AB

Junior Men
Pier-André Côté (time trial and road race) - 17, St-Henri-de-Lévis QC
Edward Walsh (road race) - 18, Halifax NS
Jean-Simon D'anjou (road race) - 18, Lévis QC
Derek Gee (road race) - 17, Osgoode ON

Courtesy Cycling Canada