Mitchell, Genest turn focus to track cycling sprint races at Paris 2024

Team Canada’s track cyclists will be hoping they’ve saved their best for last at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.

As track cycling enters its final few days at Paris 2024, Canada’s Kelsey Mitchell and Lauriane Genest were both eliminated from the women’s keirin quarterfinals on Thursday while Dylan Bibic finished 19th in the men’s omnium.

Mitchell and Genest will now look to regroup ahead of Friday’s women’s sprint qualifiers, which begin at 8:00 a.m. ET. Mitchell is the reigning Olympic champion in the event while Genest finished eighth at Tokyo 2020.

Both Mitchell and Genest had to compete in the repechage round on Wednesday to qualify for Thursday’s quarterfinal keirin races. In the event, cyclists ride behind a motorized pace bike until the final two and a half laps. They then race to the finish.

Mitchell, who finished fifth in the keirin at Tokyo 2020, was stuck in the back of the group for the entirety of her heat, placing sixth. Genest, who won bronze in Tokyo, started the race in front but couldn’t hang on to one of the four spots that advanced to the semifinals.

READ: Canadian cyclists getting themselves on track at Paris 2024

Canada will also compete in the women’s madison event on Friday, which begins at 12:09 p.m. ET. The 15-team event is essentially a tag team points race. Each team has two riders with one cyclist competing at a time during the 120-lap race.

Bibic was the lone Canadian man competing on Thursday, taking part in the four-race men’s omnium. The event features four separate races – scratch, tempo, elimination and points – with the 22 riders collecting points in each.

The 21-year-old, who is making his Olympic debut, opened by finishing 16th in the scratch race, collecting 10 points. The Canadian finished 21st in the tempo race but then went on to place 12th in the elimination race, giving him 29 total points heading into the final race of the day.

Bibic wasn’t able to collect any points in the 100-lap points race, placing him 19th overall.

READ: Track cyclist Dylan Bibic aims for the podium in Olympic debut

France’s Benjamin Thomas, despite a crash late in the points race, won gold in front of his home crowd. Iúri Leitão of Portugal won silver while Belgium’s Fabio Van den Bossche took the bronze.

Bibic won gold in the men’s scratch race at the UCI Track World Championships in 2022 to become Canada’s first ever world champion in a men’s endurance track cycling event. He then won silver in the men’s elimination race at last year’s world championships.