August 9/17 21:36 pm - Boilard Takes Women's Road Race title at Canada Games

Posted by Editoress on 08/9/17
 

Quebec women continue to dominate the cycling events at the Canada Summer Games, taking their fourth gold medal on Wednesday in the women's road race.  Simone Boilard won the field sprint in the 80 kilometre race ahead of Katherine Maine of Ontario and Anna Talman of Alberta.

The six lap race around Birds Hill Provincial Park saw numerous breakaway efforts, but none succeeded, with the Quebec, Ontario and Alberta teams vigilant in chasing down any dangerous moves.  Wind and rain also discouraged any breaks.

"I didn't expect at all to win," admitted Boilard, who had won the silver medal in the time trial 24 hours earlier.  "We knew that we had the strongest team, so for us there was a lot of pressure.  With two laps to go my team mates told me 'you are going to sprint', so I had no choice but to win for them.  It wasn't a difficult course because it was flat, but the rain made it hard.  It was more a tactical race; we had wanted a breakaway, but it didn't work, so we had to reshuffle the cards."

Katherine Maine, the silver medalist, said "the race was super aggressive, and our team did a good job of getting in every move.  It didn't quite come together at the end, but we were pretty close, so I'm happy."

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