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| photo credit: Fast and Female |
Saturday was the very first Fast and Female road cycling event! Just a recap for those who may not know what Fast and Female is, it is a non- profit organization with a goal of female empowerment through sport. It was originally founded by Olympic gold medal xc-ski winner Chandra Crawford in an effort to inspire girls to stay in sport. The organization has since begun to expand to include other sports as well. It was during a fall training ride with fellow Canadian, Leah Guloein, that Fast and Female came up in a conversation. We were trying to come up with ways to get more girls into cycling, and we both agreed that it would be cool to try and host a road cycling event to get girls excited about the sport. And what better venue for the event than the Grand Prix Cycliste Gatineau, Canada's biggest women's UCI cycling weekend featuring world reknown cyclists?! The organization was soon on board and took charge of logistics, while Leah and I recruited some more ambassadors and prepared some activities.
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| photo credit: Fast and Female |
Twenty-seven amazing young cyclists between 9-19 came out for the first event! We began the day split into four groups. Each group came up with a team name, named strengths that everybody brought to the group, and got to go crazy with the face glitter!
After a great pep talk from National Team coach, Denise Kelly, all of the ambassadors were introduced then it was off for a ride. It was a perfect sunny and hot day for riding. There was a mix of mtb and road bikes in my group of 10/11 year olds. We regrouped often and talked about important riding skills and tactics to focus on. We also hit up a good climb in Gatineau park and I was super impressed by how strong the girls were at climbing!
We returned for a quick healthy snack and inspirational speech from my Optum p/b KBS team-mate Joelle. Joelle did a great job talking about perseverance, balance and achieving your goals. It was really a great speech and the girls had many questions. Denise then followed up by talking about the previous day's time trial (won by Canadian Clara Hughes!) and the impressive competition she was up against.
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| Zumba time Photo credit: Fast and Female |
Next up was Zumba time! I have never done Zumba in my life and have to say it was an interesting experience. Learned some sweet new dance moves and worked up a sweat laughing.
Overall I would say the event was a success! Some of the girls came out to cheer the next day which was really cool! Check out www.fastandfemale.com to find out about upcoming events.
Racing time:
The next day my team raced in the GP Gatineau, a UCI 1.1 ranked road race. It was an important event since the Olympic qualification period ends at the end of this month, and countries are still busy seeking out UCI points to qualify more spots.
The race began with an early breakaway for Tara Whitten (Tibco), a multiple world champion track cyclist (and one to watch in the next Olympics!). The race was 132 km long (13 laps) and it was a very hot day for racing, so the peloton allowed her a gap up to 1:45 before chasing. The race really started to light up after the initial laps. There were constant attacks and breakaways, but nothing would stick for very long. Our team did a great job being well represented in these moves which was great. A late break in the race looked promising, Optum had Lex and Denise up there, and Joelle decided to make a big effort to bridge across to it. Unfortunately this move also did not succeed and it looked like the race would be a bunch sprint again. A round a bout 300 metres from the end meant it would be a technical finish. There have been crashes there every year, so I think everyone was hoping for a break for a safer finish.
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| 3 Canadians in one break! Just wish everyone would work.. |
The finish plan was for Carmen and I to lead out Joelle for the sprint. With 2 km to go everything was looking good. Carmen had Joelle on her wheel and sat top 10, then one rider sat between myself and Joelle. However I did not expect that rider to suddenly be suddenly hitting the pavement when we turned off the final off ramp section of the course. Crashes suck. By some miracle I pulled out some impressive bike skills and came to screeching stop before t-boning anybody. I saw an Optum rider hit the ground in the whole ordeal. What a mess. I hopped off and back onto my bike then rode hard to find that the crash had gaped the front riders from the rest of the group. I took the sprint for 12th place and went off to find my teammates. Turns out that Carmen did a beautiful job at the finish, completely overtaking the Lululemon lead out right before the final round-a-bout. Joelle sprinted for a 4th place and Carmen was 5th. Not the podium we were hoping for, but still pretty darn good! The race was won by sprint machine Ina Teutenberg from Lululemon. Unfortunately that final crash left poor Annie concussed, we are all wishing her a quick recovery.
As I mentioned, the team is now in Idaho for the Exergy Tour. Check out the Exergy Tour Tracker app to follow the racing: http://exergytour.thetourtracker.com/ . They are going to be live streaming all of our races. I'm so impressed by the event already, they are treating us like rock stars!
Leah :)
