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| Photo: The Canadian Press |
The Canadian Press
Canada's Cyclists Make Gold Pursuit Final
Posted Thursday, February 16, 2012 4:00 PM ET
Jennifer Lukas, CTVOlympics.ca Staff
LONDON, England -- Canada's women's pursuit team
set a Canadian record and guaranteed itself a medal at the UCI Track Cycling
World Cup on Thursday, finishing first in the qualifying heats.
Competing in London's Velodrome -- the venue that
will host the track cycling events at the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games --
Tara Whitten, Gillian Carleton and Jasmin Glaesser finished their heat in
3:20.785 to set up a Friday evening gold-medal final versus the home crowd
favourites, Great Britain.
"It’s a really exciting time for our team
right now," said Whitten, who is also a podium favourite in the women's
omnium, which begins Saturday. "When we had our trials in LA, we saw that
all five of us are produced fast times. It makes the decision really hard for
the coaches, and pushes us to be at our best every day, and makes the team a
lot faster.
Canada raced early in the schedule, as the fifth of
15 heats, and the venue was almost half empty as the team began whipping around
the bends just after 6 p.m. GMT. It was the fifth heat ever run on the Olympic
track.
As the splits started show better-than World Record
times, however, the crowd's initially lacklustre cheers started to gather
intensity.
Canada went on to finish 1.22 seconds outside of
the record time.
"What struck me most tonight was the
crowd," said Carleton. "You can tell the people here are crazy about
cycling. I could hear during the race the announcer amping the crowd
with every split that showed up on the time board, which I would normally never
do.
"I just thought that was the most motivating
to do. It’s very exciting to hear when you’re on pace for the World Record, but
at the same time, it doesn’t register too much, because we're still focused on
the execution of the plan, and what we’re supposed to do. It’s still a great
morale boost."
