Canadian cyclists getting themselves on track at Paris 2024

We’ve already seen plenty of cycling at Paris 2024—BMX, mountain biking and road cycling. But now, Team Canada is hitting the track.

Day 12 has been the third of seven days of track cycling, a sport in which Canada won two medals at Tokyo 2020. Kelsey Mitchell won gold in the women’s sprint, while Lauriane Genest won bronze in the women’s keirin.

In that event, cyclists ride behind a motorized pace bike until the final two and a half laps, when they race to the finish. Both Genest and Mitchell, who finished fifth in the keirin in Tokyo, were in action in the first round of women’s keirin in Paris on Wednesday.

Neither had the fastest start to the day, each finishing fourth in their respective first round heats. But in the repechage round, Genest and Mitchell both won their heats, advancing to Thursday’s quarterfinal.

“I feel good,” said Genest after the repechage. “This morning, in the qualification, I was maybe a little bit too stressed and taking it too seriously. Then after the race was done, the stress went away and I was able to focus on what was coming.

“I could feel I was getting speed in the last straight, so I’m excited for tomorrow.”

Mitchell also knows what she needs to do to prepare for the next round.

“I need to come down from the adrenaline pumping right now, get some food in, get some water,” she said. “We’ve done this before, we’ve done this drill, we know the schedule.”

READ: Team Canada cyclists ready to ride to glory at Paris 2024

The keirin results are a boost to the pair after they and Sarah Orban finished eighth in the women’s team sprint earlier in the week. But Mitchell knows that’s just the nature of the beast.

“This is the Olympics, every race is going to be quite competitive,” she said. “Tactically, didn’t race super well. First round, hit a wall and couldn’t get over it.”

There were plenty of other Canadians in action at the Vélodrome de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines on Wednesday.

Tyler Rorke and Nick Wammes competed in the men’s sprint qualification round. Both Rorke (9.603) and Wammes (9.612) advanced to the 1/32 final later in the day. They’d each fall short in their one-on-one matchups in that round, and onto the repechage they went.

The two Canadians were drawn into a repechage heat with France’s Rayan Helal (9.916), and neither Rorke (+0.417) or Wammes (+1.020) would advance further. Earlier in the week, Rorke, Wammes and James Hedgcock had finished eighth in the men’s team sprint.

Also on Wednesday, the Canadian quartet of Maggie Coles-Lyster, Sarah Van Dam, Erin Attwell and Ariane Bonhomme took on Germany in the women’s team pursuit first round. The Canadians had booked that matchup by finishing eighth in Tuesday’s qualification round with a time of 4:12.205.

In the day 12 meeting, Germany (4:07.908) prevailed over Canada (4:10.471), sending Canada to the 7-8 final. There, Canada faced an Australian team and posted a time of 4:12.097, good for an eighth-place Olympic finish.

In the 7-8 final of the men’s team pursuit on Wednesday, the Canadian team of Dylan Bibic, Michael Foley, Mathias Guillemette and Carson Mattern went up against a team from Belgium that did not finish the race. With a time of 3:54.517, Canada claimed seventh place.