![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IJ5ZKHMHGFDFNEN5MOBFYAUBNI.jpg\")
081825 – Air Canada strike cyclists Cycling Canada rented a pair of vans to drive the athletes and coaches from Montreal to Boston, Mass. in order to fly to Amsterdam for this week\u2019s World Championships. (Source: Phil Abbott) <\/p>\nCanada\u2019s U20 cycling team, which includes 3 locals, improvised travel plans to make world championships in the Netherlands. CTV London\u2019s Brent Lale reports. <\/p>\n
A planned trip to Europe turned out to be like the plot of John Candy movie.<\/p>\n
When Cycling Canada was set to depart for the Netherlands to compete in the U20 World Championships, their flights from Montreal were cancelled due to the Air Canada strike.<\/p>\n
It left St. Thomas, Ont. natives Brody Mann, Alex Fangeat and Eve Buczkowski all stuck with teammates and coaches in Quebec, where they were holding a training camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long two days of travel, with almost no sleep,\u201d said Buczkowski from her hotel in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
As the projected strike date of Saturday approached, it sent everyone into panic mode.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Friday night, I think, we were sort of in crisis at that point, and we had to start to think outside the box and pivot our plan,\u201d said Phil Abbott, director of endurance with Cycling Canada.<\/p>\n
Like Candy\u2019s characters in Home Alone and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, they packed up their gear and started driving.<\/p>\n
081825 – Air Canada strike cyclists Cycling Canada rented a pair of vans to drive the athletes and coaches from Montreal to Boston, Mass. in order to fly to Amsterdam for this week\u2019s World Championships. (Source: Phil Abbott) <\/p>\n
\u201cWe found two willing drivers and two-15 passenger vans,\u201d says Abbott.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe grabbed one of our Cycling Canada trailers and we packed it to the gills. I don\u2019t think we could have set another bike box in it, and we were quickly on our way down to Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n
While they were making the five-hour drive, staff in Ottawa were frantically looking for available flights.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelta had available seats which is important and then also, more importantly, the available room for all of our equipment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe travel with 32 bike boxes and they\u2019re not small. They\u2019re hard to get around and airlines sometimes struggle to take that much luggage. So fortunately, they were able to fit us in, I think less than 24 hours notice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The flights arrived early Monday morning.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t the only ones who had to jump through hoops to make it to Europe.<\/p>\n
Buczkowski\u2019s mom, Ashley, has a tale of her own. She, along with her husband and son, took the train from London to Montreal to meet up with her daughter and planned to fly with them. Those plans quickly were derailed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe boarded a bus at 10 p.m. and drove overnight to New York City,\u201d said Ashley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got here at 4:30 a.m. and booked a flight with Delta that left at 7:30 p.m. We toured NYC for the day, but we hadn\u2019t slept in over 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
An update from Ashley said they arrived in the Netherlands Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been basically three days of very little sleep and we\u2019re exhausted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Now that everyone has arrived, they can focus on the competition.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/LBEXIYJQHFBGLJOQ4O4NGEBLTY.jpg\")
081825 – Air Canada strike cyclists Canada\u2019s U20 Cycling team had to drive to Boston, Mass from Montreal, Que. to fly to Amsterdam due to the Air Canada strike. (Source: Phil Abbott) <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re all relieved today to get to the velodrome and unpack, have all of our equipment and see the velodrome,\u201d said Abbott.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be training tomorrow (Tuesday) getting ready for racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
They will worry about how they will get home later in the week if the strike continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s U20 cycling team, which includes 3 locals, improvised travel plans to make world championships in the Netherlands.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-79845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79845","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=79845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}