Sarah Selected for Hong Kong world cup Jan 25-27

[Lister Farrar]

Sarah Selected for Hong Kong world cup Jan 25-27

Sarah Van Dam just sent a note that she's been selected as starter (P1) for the team pursuit for the Hong Kong round of the world cup series. (No word on teammates yet.).

The world cup is a series of 6 meets from October to January, finishing a month before the world championships Feb 27 in Poland. The series is also the qualifying process for the Olympic games in Tokyo Japan.

Significant is that Sarah is still a junior, (not even u23 until 2020!), and will be racing against Olympic contenders from around the world.

Bravo Sarah!

Lister


Note from Sarah today:

"Here is a little update:) The past two weeks I have been in Milton Ontario training at the velodrome with the Next Gen women's team. I was invited out to this camp to see if I can fit in with the women and contribute positively to the team pursuit.

When we first arrived we sat down as a team with our coach Jenny along with a mental psychologist to talk about the selection process. The selection criteria was clearly laid out infront of us so we knew exactly what we had to do to get selected. It comes down to the simple phrase you often hear which is "showing up to your training sessions and giving 110%." Always trying to get the most out of every session. This was in the back of my mind everyday, which pushed me every single session to do my best.

In the first week we did high leg speed drills which made us focus on cadence as well as technical execution, for example exchanges. We would do flying 5 kilometre efforts in a small gear which forced leg speed back into my legs. I haven’t had a large block of training on the track since August so my leg speed wasn’t as great as the other women. However, over a couple days it did improve. In the beginning it was questionable if I was going to finish the efforts and by then end of that block I was hanging in there. High cadence drills aren’t only physically demanding but they are mentally fatiguing as well.

After a few sessions we started to get into more race pace efforts which were the efforts selection was based off of. We mostly did flying starts at the beginning with all the riders to focus on settling in the line, and pace management. We then moved into more standing start efforts. I rode a number of different positions in the line for the camp. I rode P1, P2, and P3 mostly because Jenny wanted to know where I could contribute best to the team. We learned that P3 wasn’t my ideal position because P3 and P4 are riders who contribute heavily to the team in the second half of the ride so they tend to be more aerobic riders. Whereas P1 contributes heavily to the front half of the ride so they tend to be a bit more anaerobic. P2 is an extremely difficult position because you have to have a good start to get on to P1 immediately, which means you are putting out a lot of power to start and then you have to pull shortly after.

It was really valuable to ride these different positions to get a feeling for how different they are. I now know it takes time to work out people’s positions and to figure out the best lineup. A couple days ago we ran some trials which are like test runs. Each rider was put into 2 rides. I had one trial ride on Saturday and one on Sunday. The cool thing was during this time there was O-Cup racing happening at the Velodrome so we even had the race day environment around us. On Saturday I started as P1 and Sunday I started as P2. In the end I was selected as P1 in the lineup and I am so excited for what awaits. The team leaves for Hong Kong this Saturday so until then our main focus is going to be recovering. We will still be doing intensity on the bike but we will be doing less quantity to freshen up our legs before we fly. So far I have already learned so many valuable things from my teammates and this entire process so I can’t wait for the experience that is ahead of me."

[Lister Farrar]

Here's Sarah leading the team pursuit team in Hong Kong world cup.

Here's what the national team manager Kris Westwood had to say about her:

"And Sarah Van Dam was very impressive in the Team Pursuit at just 17 years old. The NextGen Team Pursuit squad met both of their goals - a top-10 finish, and a sub-4:30 time, and Sarah was a big part of that."

http://www.canadiancyclist.com/dailynew ... -world-cup

[Fozzy]

Wow!! Go Sarah!! Great pic.

[alan boden]

Thank you Lister and thank you Sarah for that cool update! It’s great to see our talented youth squad take these opportunities and run with them!