Canada grabs 1st-ever men's team pursuit gold at track cycling World Cup

Canada claimed its first-ever win in the men's team pursuit at the track cycling World Cup on Saturday in Apeldoorm, Netherlands.

With the second-round victory, Canada also moves into the overall lead in the World Cup standings, after finishing third in the first round.

Our plan for the first two World Cups was to have a clean run," explained Ian Melvin, national men's endurance coach.  "We wanted to get the points to qualify for Worlds so we didn't have to depend on Cali [World Cup #3]."

In the final against Belgium, the Canadian team of Aidan Caves, Adam Jamieson, Jay Lamoureux and Bayley Simpson trailed the Belgians over the first 3,000 metres after their rivals got off to a very strong start. 

However, the Canadian team came back steadily and made their move in the final leg. With 1,000 metres remaining, the Belgian team slowed dramatically, while Canada had its fastest split of the race, to win with a time of four minutes and 2.144 seconds, over four seconds ahead of Belgium.  France won the bronze medal.

"It's a pretty crazy day," Aidan Caves said, "it's actually been a pretty crazy month since Nationals, probably one of the best ever.  We were aware that they [Belgium] were probably going to go out hot, but we didn't panic, because we all knew that we were the stronger team.  We knew that if we stayed strong that we have consistently had a faster final Kilo than most of the other teams, so that's what we focussed on; to come back from the little bit they were up on us.  It worked out pretty well to plan."

Canada now leads the overall standings with 1800 points, followed by Great Britain at 1700 and France, also with 1700 points.

"We've got five guys here who can execute, so we are using everyone to have some fresh legs for each ride," Bayley Simpson said.  "This was my first trip with the team, and the first ride I got to do was in Glasgow for the bronze medal.  It was nerve-wracking but we executed it that day and then we were able to come here and do it again.  I can't even put it into words, really.  The time was good; we looked at the past times here when the world championships were here in 2011 and the winning team was a high 4:01, so we are pretty happy with our time."