February 1/22 10:52 am - Tour de Gatineau Cancelled Again, Western Track Challenge Postponed

Posted by Editoress on 02/1/22
 

Sadly, for the third straight year, the Tour de Gatineau has been cancelled. Scheduled for June 2-3, both the UCI sanctioned Chrono Feminin (time trial) and Tour de la Gatineau (road race) will not take place due to the pandemic. The Western Track Challenge has been postponed to March 18-20.

Gatineau

The Tour de Gatineau still plan to host a weekend of cycling on June 4th and 5th that will include:
• The Coupe de Québec - youth events
• The British Grand Prix - elite men's and women's criteriums
• Tour de Gatineau recreational sportif

In a statement from the organization:

Due to the ongoing pandemic, the Tour de Gatineau Organizing Committee has made the difficult decision to cancel the UCI Women's Time Trial and Road Race events, which were scheduled for June 2 and 3, 2022.

Welcoming international competitors to Gatineau while strict health and safety protocols are in place and with ongoing travel restrictions presents enormous challenges to race organizers, competitors and spectators alike. The Committee remains hopeful that these UCI events will
take place in 2023.

The Tour de Gatineau Organizing Committee remains committed to organizing other cycling events in 2022 to showcase the sport of cycling to the community of Gatineau and the National Capital Region.

Western Track Challenge

As a result of the evolving public health guidelines, the Burnaby Velodrome Club, Cycling BC and Cycling Canada have reached a decision to reschedule the Western Track Challenge to the tentative dates of March 18-20, 2022.

Amateur sporting events are currently permitted to continue in British Columbia with some limitations however, the Provincial Health Officer is urging Canadians to avoid interprovincial travel for the purpose of sport in order to reduce the risk of spreading the Omicron variant. The Western Track Challenge is a Western Canadian regional event on Cycling Canada's National events calendar and typically draws participants from other provinces and the US northwest. It has become clear that hosting this event on the originally scheduled date of February 18-20, 2022, would not be respecting the intention of the current health orders and may undermine the efforts that British Columbians are making to keep the variant from spreading.

The rescheduled date of March 18-20, 2022 provides the organizing committee additional time to prepare for a safe execution of the event while also providing the racers and attendees with adequate time to plan travel to Burnaby.

As the response to the ongoing pandemic continues to evolve, it is impossible to predict how events and gatherings will be impacted over the next few months. We will continue to follow the updated guidance from ViaSport and British Columbia's Provincial Health Officer and will plan to provide an update during the week of February 14th based on the information available at that time.

The Burnaby Velodrome Club continues to run its regularly scheduled weeknight training sessions and Friday night club races with public health precautions in place. The club executive will be investigating the possibility of running a regional level competition on the February 18-20 weekend in lieu of the Western Track Challenge.

For more information about upcoming events and programming at the Burnaby Velodrome Club, go to burnabyvelodrome.ca.