{"id":580992,"date":"2026-05-13T03:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580992\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:26:14","slug":"gut-wrenching-and-infuriating-fury-as-canadian-womens-team-pursuit-squad-cut-ahead-of-la-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580992\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Gut wrenching and infuriating’ \u2013 fury as Canadian women’s team pursuit squad cut ahead of LA Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the Canadian women\u2019s track squad have expressed their concern and frustration after Cycling Canada pulled the women\u2019s team pursuit<\/a> from its 2028 Los Angeles Olympics<\/a> program.<\/p>\n

The federation said it will not field a women\u2019s team pursuit squad at this October\u2019s UCI Track World Championships in Shanghai, China, nor will it look to qualify one for LA. It will continue, however, to fund the men\u2019s team pursuit squad throughout the Olympic cycle.<\/p>\n

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The decision has drawn indignation from members of the women\u2019s program, who have described it as \u201cgut wrenching and infuriating\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat has happened this past week is not something I am willing to stand for,\u201d wrote Fiona Majendie, a reserve member of the squad at the Paris Olympics<\/a> in 2024, on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will always try and put a ceiling on you. Cycling Canada is not only putting a lid on the women\u2019s program right now, they are burying it beneath the ground, and they are destroying years of equality as well as the future of the sport in Canada for all our developing juniors,\u201d Majendie continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo rip away our chance to qualify for the Olympics is both gut wrenching and infuriating.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement shared with Cycling Weekly, Cycling Canada CEO Mathieu Boucher explained the decision was \u201cperformance-based […] informed by objective, evidence-based analysis. While difficult, it was made in the best interest of the program\u2019s long-term success.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Boucher said the squad\u2019s results since Paris 2024 \u201cwere not trending towards medal winning potential\u201d in LA. He added that recent performances, both in competition and training, \u201cdid not indicate these gaps were likely to be closed in time\u201d for the 2028 Games.<\/p>\n

The Canadian women\u2019s team pursuit squad won bronze medals at both the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics. In Paris two years ago, they placed eighth, while the men\u2019s squad were seventh.<\/p>\n

More recently, the women\u2019s squad finished ninth at the UCI Track World Championships in Santiago, Chile last October. The men\u2019s squad were 11th.<\/p>\n

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No Canadian man has won an Olympic medal in track cycling since Curt Harnett took bronze in the men\u2019s sprint<\/a> in 1996.<\/p>\n

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\"The\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Alex Whitehead\/SWpix)<\/p>\n

Last week, members of the women\u2019s track squad addressed an open letter<\/a> to Cycling Canada, funding provider Sport Canada and not-for-profit organisation Own the Podium, voicing their concerns of a \u201cdisparity in access to high-performance opportunities based on gender\u201d, in particular an \u201cunequal pathway to Olympic participation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The squad requested a formal review of the decision to curb the program, and asked for it to be reinstated in time for the 2026 UCI Track World Championships in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this happened because the athletes stopped caring or stopped working hard enough,\u201d wrote Lily Plante, a squad member for the last six years, on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many others on this team, I sacrificed financially, physically, mentally, and personally to represent Canada on the international stage. I paid thousands of dollars out of pocket to race across the world, qualify spots for Worlds, and keep this program alive because I believed in what it could become.<\/p>\n

\u201cBehind every result were athletes doing everything they could with what they were given. And that\u2019s exactly why this hurts so much,\u201d Plante continued.<\/p>\n

Ariane Bonhomme, a two-time Olympian who won four team pursuit titles at the Pan American Championships with the squad, said she retired in January, aged 30, after receiving an email saying her Sport Canada funding was being withdrawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decline of this program has nothing to do with the strength, talent, or commitment of the riders. It has everything to do with how the program has been managed over the past several years,\u201d Bonhomme said.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s women\u2019s endurance squad funding for the LA Olympics will instead go towards the individual events \u2013 Omnium<\/a> and Madison<\/a> \u2013 as well as the wider development pathway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain committed to the development of the women\u2019s team pursuit program,\u201d Cycling Canada CEO Boucher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are taking deliberate steps to strengthen athlete development moving forward. Targeted investments, in collaboration with the cycling ecosystem, will support future growth through key opportunities, including the Junior Track World Championships (August 2026), the Apeldoorn Next Gen Track event (January 2027), the Pan American Championships (February 2027), and the Milton World Cup (April 2027).\u201d<\/p>\n

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