May 12/26 18:19 pm - Cycling Canada is Losing Athlete Trust - Part 1

Posted by Editor on 05/12/26
 

This is a long one, so I've broken it into two parts - Part 1 (this one) is a synopsis of the situation regarding the Women's Team Pursuit program, and Part 2 is how this decision and, more importantly, how it was communicated, is negatively impacting the relationship with its athletes.

Part 1

Last week, Cycling Canada sent out an email to athletes in the Women's Team Pursuit (WTP) high performance program. In it, they stated that they will not be sending a team pursuit squad to the 2026 world championships. The stated reason was that a review determined that performance projections do not suggest that the team will be competitive. Additionally, while a women's squad will not be sent, the men's squad is still scheduled to attend.

The initial email stated: "Given the outcome of the review and current budgetary constraints faced by Cycling Canada, it was established that a women's team pursuit should not be sent to 2026 world championships. Resources will instead be directed toward individual events and team pursuit development initiatives within the Women Track Endurance Program. As Cycling Canada focuses on team pursuit development, we will continue to pursue the qualification for the Women's Omnium and madison at the 2028 L.A. Olympic Games. This will include support of athletes at the necessary events to qualify."

While this was sent to the members of the program, it quickly spread into the wider cycling community, especially when athletes of the program released a response. It has now gone pretty much viral, with cycling media worldwide picking up on it, and the general media, including CBC, reporting. The feedback from the cycling community has, to put it mildly, not been forgiving to Cycling Canada.

Much of the reporting has focussed on the fact that the women's program was targeted, and not the men, suggesting that there are equity issues at stake. Also, the women's program has a long history of success, including two Olympic bronze medals (2012 and 2016), as well as multiple World Cup and world championship podiums.

Tara Whitten, a member of the bronze medal winning 2012 team and multi-time world champion, said in a message, "I am incredibly saddened by this situation because I really believe that a thriving, sustainable team pursuit program can drive success in all endurance disciplines on the track and the road. I want that for Canada, and I believe it is possible! I hope we can find our way back there."

2012 London Olympics

Within 24 hours, Cycling Canada provided a more detailed explanation, outlining the process used to come to this decision. They stressed that it was an unbiased, objective analysis of existing performance capabilities for both the team and the individual athletes.

"It is important to understand that, when it made the decision, Cycling Canada did not conduct a direct comparison between the men's and women's team pursuit programs in order to determine which program was outperforming the other. The future performance potential of each program was assessed at the same time, using the same analytical tools, but no direct comparison was made between the men's and women's programs to determine whether they would be pursued at the 2026 track worlds.

"Cycling Canada's assessment primarily focused on time gaps; gap to the podium and/or gap to the top 6. This assessment looked directly at the power profile of current individual athletes, as well as the collective team. Cycling Canada also used its podium pathway to evaluate each individual's gap against the elite profile.

"After conducting this assessment, Cycling Canada determined that, based on the current competitive level of the current women's team pursuit team, while considering that some improvement was possible, it is unlikely that the team's improvement will be sufficient to qualify for and be competitive at the 2028 Olympic Games."

Clearly, this was a tough decision to make, especially taking into account the long history of the program - the most consistently successful in the history of Canadian track cycling.

2016 Rio Olympics

Unlike some accusations floating around online, I don't believe there is any gender bias involved in the decision; the Canadian program has shown over the years - across many disciplines - that it is equally willing to support women's and men's programs.

Was it the correct decision? We can argue back and forth on this forever; and I'm sure the athletes and the high performance experts will. This is a very expensive program to run, given that it is the largest in number of athletes, and that has to factor into decisions, particularly given the hit Cycling Canada has taken to its high performance budget in recent years (as have many sports).

Next:  Cycling Canada has lost athlete trust through poor communication

Cycling Canada is Losing Athlete Trust - Part 2