Ottawa Bicycle Club product Ariane Bonhomme won a pair of medals at October’s Pan American Track Cycling Championships in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
The 21-year-old from Gatineau won a gold medal with the Canadian women’s team pursuit squad and earned bronze in the women’s points race behind fellow Canadian Jasmin Glaesser, who won gold.
“It was the first time that I have done a Points Race in the elite category,” Bonhomme noted in a Cycling Canada media release. “So it was a lot different coming into the race, especially with two riders per country, which made for a different strategy. Jasmin and I tried to help each other while still going for our own results. I was able to take a lap around the midpoint in the race when there was a lull, which put me into second, but the Cuban girl won the final sprint, which put me third.
“But it’s pretty nice to finish third in your first elite race; it was pretty exciting.”
Bonhomme, along with Ottawa’s Emily Flynn, will return to The Cyclery women’s racing team for 2017, the local team announced in November.
The team that dominated the 2016 Global Relay Canadian Road Championships will be led by Vancouver’s Justine Clift and receive mentorship from Calgary-based Rio 2016 Olympian Tara Whitten.
Along with returning rider Amelie Bruneau of Montreal, the team will add talent to its lineup from across the country, including national criterium champion Kinley Gibson (Edmonton), as well as Catherine Ouellette (Montreal), Suzanne Hamilton (Calgary), Marina Aspen (Saskatoon) and Sara Giovonetti (Mississauga).
Carrying a goal of bridging the gap between local and international racing, the team graduated two athletes onto the professional ranks for 2017 – national road champion Annie Foreman-Mackey (headed to World Tour team Twenty-16) and Ellen Watters (Colavita).