{"id":784321,"date":"2026-07-06T17:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/784321\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T17:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:46:10","slug":"new-national-champ-maggie-coles-lyster-second-in-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/784321\/","title":{"rendered":"New national champ Maggie Coles-Lyster second in Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday was new kit day for Maple Ridge, B.C.\u2019s Maggie Coles-Lyster of Human Powered Health, and she wasted little time showing off her new Maple Leaf jersey. The new national champion sprinted to second at the Argenta Classic \u2013 Deurne in Belgium Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The result was Coles-Lyster\u2019s fifth podium of the 2026 season and another sign of how quickly she has returned to top form following surgery last year to treat flow limitation in the iliac artery (FLIA). Her comeback has been great, after a very long recovery process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really cool that I can be annoyed over second places right now because hands down, this is so far my best season yet,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is on a comeback year where my surgeon doesn\u2019t even expect me to be at the top of my game after the end of my first full season back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 Argenta Classic\u2013Deurne<\/p>\n

The 127.4-km race featured 27 laps over cobbled streets. It made for some nervous racing. However, as the finale approached, Coles-Lyster\u2019s HPH worked to control the race, before Zanardi delivered Coles-Lyster into the final corner. Ireland\u2019s new national champion Lara Gillespie took the dub.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe course was quite hectic today, and so coming into that last kilometre, I\u2019d been shuffled back a bit through the last cobble sector,\u201d Coles-Lyster said. \u201cI always backed myself to get to Silvia, and then we\u2019ll do our thing. She got me through that last corner in fifth, and then the sprint was just what it was, but I think we rode the whole race really well, and then you can learn from the end and figure out what we can do to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coles-Lyster said her team was crucial for setting her up before she unleashed her very, very fast kick.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rode great all day and were in good position leading into that last lap, and it just kept us out of trouble,\u201d says Coles-Lyster. \u201cThe field split a couple of times, so we made sure that we had a couple of riders in each of those splits to cover every move, so the team did a really good job covering it all. When it\u2019s chaotic, having a team like this that can control it just makes it easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new jersey<\/p>\n

She was stoked to show off her new jersey, too. It was her first race in it. She won the title for the second time\u2013although first as a WorldTour pro, in Saint Georges at the end of June.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like the first day of school vibes,\u201d she beams. \u201cYou\u2019re nervous, and you see people looking at you, having a little head turn and telling the person next to them, so it\u2019s fun. It\u2019s been four years since I got to rock the Maple Leaf, and it\u2019s nice to be back in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coles-Lyster will next race the Tour de Pologne later this month before racing for Team Canada on the track at the Commonwealth Games in Scotland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m carrying a lot of confidence right now that I can get a podium and then we\u2019re working well as a team to get that dub on a good day,\u201d she says. \u201cThose are the expectations I have for myself and the team going into Poland, and I have two weeks now to have a good block and sharpen the sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday was new kit day for Maple Ridge, B.C.\u2019s Maggie Coles-Lyster of Human Powered Health, and she wasted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,174338,82,11588],"class_list":["post-784321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-maggie-coles-lyster","tag-sports","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}