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Published Aug 02, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
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IZU, JAPAN – AUGUST 03: A general view of Allison Beveridge, Ariane Bonhomme, Annie Foreman-Mackey and Georgia Simmerling of Team Canada sprint during the Women’s team pursuit finals, bronze medal of the Track Cycling on day eleven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Izu Velodrome on August 03, 2021 in Izu, Japan. Photo by Justin Setterfield /Getty Images
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Olympic track cycling events begin next week and Canada’s women’s pursuit team is determined to win the country a medal. The team – which includes Ariane Bonhomme, Erin Attwell, Sarah Van Dam, Maggie Coles-Lyster and alternate Fiona Majendie – has been training together for over a year and planned their race strategy to the second.
While her teammates are making their Olympic debuts, this is not Bonhomme’s first rodeo. The Gatineau cyclist, who participated in her first race on a $200 Canadian Tire bike in Grade 6 and got into the sport when she was a speed skater, was on the pursuit team that placed fourth at the Tokyo Olympics.
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“It’s a pretty new and young team, I’m the old one,” said 29-year-old Bonhomme, who noted the team is “pretty good” and is in the running for one of the top three spots. “Our goal is definitely to be on the podium.”
Ten teams will compete in the team pursuit at the Olympics, Bonhomme said, adding that five or six could end up on the podium, “depending on how they show up to racing.”
“It’ll be really interesting and hard but good, that’s how you want the competition to be,” Bonhomme said.
The team pursuit is a four-kilometre race, consisting of four riders who collectively do 16 laps of the track.
Aiming to get three riders across the line as fast as possible, racers begin from a standing start before getting in line on the track, each taking their turn at the front. Bonhomme said each rider usually does two laps at the front at a time before going to the back for “a rest, which isn’t really a rest.”
“We’re allowed to drop one rider,” said Bonhomme, who said the psychological demands for each position are very different. “Most teams, we use that as a strategy, we’ll use a rider earlier on that will allow the three other riders to take a bit more of a rest and then they’ll pull out and the three riders will finish the race.”
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While the Olympic team was only officially named in June, the team has been training since after the last Olympic cycle, with the riders competing together at world championships.
Coles-Lyster, Canada’s first-ever junior world champion in track cycling, is participating in three events at the Games, the most of all of Team Canada’s endurance cycling athletes. On top of the team pursuit, she’s also competing in the Madison with Bonhomme and is going solo in the Omnium.
“To actually have this opportunity presented in front of me is pretty exciting,” said Coles-Lyster, who has been dreaming of medaling in the team pursuit and Omnium events since she was a kid. She was inspired early on as her parents owned a bike shop and sponsored a team that included Canadian Olympic medallists.
Most of the team, aside from Bonhomme, have known each other and rode together for over a decade, all being from B.C. Coles-Lyster said going to the Olympics together after so many years is “pretty special.”
“Most of us have been training together for years so we’ve worked a lot on the team dynamics and we know how each other works and what we need and how we react on race day,” she said. “We have really good team energy.”
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Coles-Lyster said she’s pushing for a medal in the team pursuit and the Omnium.
“I think we got very clear on this goal like a year ago,” Coles-Lyster said. “Every time we sat down and had goal-setting talks over the past couple of years, we’ve always been very clear that we’re a team that can race for a medal.”
In April, the team just missed out on a medal at the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup, finishing in fourth place. Coles-Lyster said that experience showed them what they’re capable of, adding that they “can only go faster from there.”
“We’re going to be fighting for that medal,” she said.
Bonhomme said one of the most important things for the team was to build trust in each other, given that the pursuit – while a team event – is also a very individual race.
“Throughout the race, we don’t really interact with each other like a basketball team would,” Bonhomme said. “You have a job to do and you need to execute it.”
Bonhomme said she and Coles-Lyster haven’t had much of an opportunity to train for the Madison event and tried to pull out of it ahead of the Games. They were told by their cycling federation, however, that if they pulled out Coles-Lyster couldn’t compete in the Omnium, which was not an option.
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“Our main goal is to make sure that she doesn’t crash and she doesn’t hurt herself and she is in the best shape possible,” said Bonhomme. “I’m still excited. I think if it can inspire someone somewhere, a little girl watching us and being like: ‘Damn, I want to go to the Olympics and do better than they did’ I will be happy.”
Other than racing, Bonhomme said she’s most looking forward to having her mom in the stands at the Games, as she wasn’t able to be there during the Tokyo Olympics.
“To qualify yet again for a second Olympic Games was an effort on her part, a lot of work was put in,” said Bonhomme’s mom, Francine Lavoie. “(I’m) just very, very proud of what she’s been able to accomplish.”
The women’s team pursuit qualifier is on August 6, with the first round and the final on August 7.
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