Tripleshot youth racers to track nationals, worlds trials

[Lister Farrar]

Tripleshot youth team riders are in Milton this weekend for the National u17, u19 Track Championships

Erin Attwell, Adam Attwell, Riley Pickrell, and Sarah Van Dam will contest all the inidividual and most team events. The u19 events, particularly individual pursuit, are selection events for the Jumior World Championships in July in Switzerland. Erin Attwell has met the selection standard time once this winter at the Ontario Track Championships, and just has to do it again at this event.

Riley and Sarah are defending champions from 2015, Riley in omnium and Sarah in team sprint. Both won those medals as upgraded u15s, so have a good chance to do well again as first year u17s. Adam won a silver medal with Riley and Angus Brown last year, but is a first year u19 this year. All have been doing personal best times in training.

Thanks to TS sponsors global relay, Cassels Murray, Properties in Victoria, Hoyne brewing, Spiers plumbing, Eclipse Creative, Accent inns, Good to Go therapy, Bear Mountain, and personal sponsors Oak Bay Bikes (Sarah), Straight Up and Argon (Riley) and Bear Mountain (Erin).

Also thanks to parents Susan Pickrell, James Van dam, and David Attwell, who are also travelling with the team, and booked the rented townhouse and van, and shopping and cooking for the team.

The team prepared with a program called Teams of BC, via four two-day camps in Burnaby in December, January, february, and March, with other bc clubs attending nationals. Thanks to the Devo and Tag youth teams in vancouver for billeting TS riders, families who paid travel costs and drove (or loaned the family van in one case), Burnaby velodrome club, and Cycling bc who contributed to track rental.

[Lister Farrar]

Last training camp March 23-24 before Milton.

[Lister Farrar]

Riley training Saturday March 26. And teaching a novice team mate Josh Lin to ride the track in his warm up and between start reps.

[Lister Farrar]

Arriving in Milton. And only travelling with one bike each! But it all arrived.

[Lister Farrar]

Homework time. For kids, but parents too who booked work meetings to help pay for it all.

[Lister Farrar]

Getting a tour of the national team room in Milton.

[Lister Farrar]

Sharing leg shaving tips.

[Rolf]

Super exciting to see what you and the juniors have been up to, Lister. Go with our best wishes and cheers!

I particularly love seeing that shot of TS, Devo, and Tag riders all in a line. Great to see the B.C. team spirit!

[Lister Farrar]

Sarah with the Quebec team. Her bc team sprint partner fell on a road ride and has to wait before racing. Coach Pascal Choquette has offered to have Simone Boilard race with Sarah. Training today to determine start order.

[John D]

Best of luck to all our Tripleshot juniors! Thanks to Lister and the parents for all the amazing support that you give to the program.

Please keep us posted as things unfold over the weekend.

J.

[Lister Farrar]

Qualifying went well.

[Fozzy]

Fantastic!!!

[Lister Farrar]

The Ontario team was really good, all four riders strong. Our team lost one rider after 3 laps. Riley was doing 4 lap pulls.

[Lister Farrar]

In team sprint boys u17 qualified second fastest, 51.686 , 51.843. There might 2/10ths to be gained in their start Riley did the fastest lap of the entire team sprint tournament, u17 and u19: 14.9. Next best lap was Nick Walmart in u19, 15.1.

[Lister Farrar]

Team pursuit u17 girls, was planned, but two bc teammates are out with concussions (not from track, one a road fall, and another falling off a yoga ball. Sarah's happy with her team sprint though. She's also still the record holder with her team mate Erin from last year.

Erin and Maggie set a new Canadian u19 record in qualifying.

[Lister Farrar]

Results so far :
http://racetiming.ca/eventpage.php?EventId=1612

[Lister Farrar]

Bc kids warming up for team sprint and team pursuit finals.

[Bosie]

Links to the race:

Day 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8uHtzXS0vU
Day 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuIPRXKmTCY
Day 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUDiuXsgYhg

[Lister Farrar]

Finals of team sprint made for some nail biter finishes.

In u17 girls, Sarah and Simone from Qc were .4s ahead of second qualifiers Ontario going into the final, but near-disaster struck as Simone struggled unusually after the start with a strange wobble, then again in the first banking and fell heavily. She lay still for several moments, before getting back up. I had some faint hope when she put her glasses back on.

It turned out her front tubular had rolled, not off the rim, but over on itself in the start. BC dad Neil Davies (owner of Jubilee cycles in Vancouver) had wheels handy and replaced the front wheel, but we all wondered if she could get back up and race so soon. The second start went within 2 minutes, but we knew she was hurting. She was more than 3/10 down on her qualifying ride and worse, .2s down on the strong starting Ontario team. That's over a length behind in this race run team vs team on opposite sides of the track over only two laps.

At 1/2 a lap to go, Sarah had pulled it back to .0004 down (is that even a visible distance?), while the strangely large number of Sarah's Ontario relatives went completely nuts. I lost it, missed the video and stop watch buttons, but the scoreboard showed all we needed to know: Sarah had laid down the fastest lap of the competition, almost 3/10 faster than her qualifying ride and, 2/10 of second margin at the line. Things got blurry.

In the boys u17 team sprint, the mood of the second place qualifying team of Ethan (Devo) Tyler (TAG) and Riley (TS) was a bit resigned. Ethan has struggled with his start all week, and Tyler had just gotten dropped after three laps in the team pursuit in a combo of nerves, and well, nerves. Riley was flying in qualifying as usual, but it takes three to win. They were only 2/10 down on the fastest qualifiers Ontario, but it seemed a mountain to move in their state.

However 2 seconds into the 50 second race, something was different. Ethan leapt out of the gate and his telltale wavering shoulders were still and firm. After a lap, they were still almost 5/10 down on Ontario, but Ethan had clearly been faster, almost 5/10s than he had ever gone before. Tyler hit the front, just 20 minutes after his disappointment in the team pursuit. Somewhere he found something extra, 2/10 faster than before. But still over a length down on Ontario.

Then Riley hit it in his silky deceptive style, and nosed in front with .5 lap to go. Could it be? didn't dare to hope, but two things gave it away, whooping BC coaches and a crestfallen Ontario coach.

How good does it get? Next up was our third and last BC and TS team with Erin Attwell and Maggie Coles Lyster. They had had a good qualifying round with a new Canadian record, and are gunning to qualify for junior worlds. But they didn't rest on their laurels, and ripped a new record time by almost 6/10 of a second. and a win by a substantial 2.5 s.

Pretty cool. Three TS entries, three golds.

The only let down of the day was that Adam Attwell didn't have a team as the other BC u19 riders decided not to ride, to rest for the all important individual pursuit tomorrow which is the key selection for junior worlds. He was there cheering his team mates, but confessed watching his team mates was way more nerve wracking.

[Lister Farrar]

Simone and Sarah