Tour de Beauce and National Championships
Ii is exciting to come out of our last block of racing with the team and seeing the progress they have made with this intense schedule of International racing.
Tour de Beauce, Quebec, is celebrating its 35th year and is one of the longest standing UCI level races in North America. It is 5 days of international racing and showcases riders up and coming for National Team and the Pro ranks.
TaG Director Sportif and Triple Olympian, Gord Fraser helped them navigate and had them riding like Pros.
Throughout the race, Gord had all the riders working as a unit and being all in for the team results.
Nathan Pruner of BC was top 10 Pro Elite in 4 stages with his best result a 6th place to finish as 4th u23 rider and 9th overall in General Classification. The efforts of the team helped shepherd Nathan to position for many of the stage finishes.
Emerging daily as becoming a contender and moving up the race results was our Albertan, Reid Kinninberg 20 years old. Reid finished a creditable 20th in overall Pro Elite and 8th u23 rider.
There were 4 other TaG Alumni in Beauce riding for Cycling BC as 3 of them are based in Europe now. They also had a number of top 3 to 10 finishes as well making it obvious that we have helped develop talent each year.
A short 4 days later the team was onto National Championships in Edmonton AB.
This event showcased the new level we have achieved with the riders.
The road race was 200 km long and attended by Canada’s top riders including the Hero from the Giro, Derek Gee.
From the roll off the start, the race was ON. Evident I the overall average speed of 45 km/h after 5 hrs .A 10 m circuit made for great racing and lots of good viewing.
Young Axel Froner rode like a hero in the longest breakaway that included Derek Gee and all the notables. The thought was that was the winning break. But it was brought back by Toronto Hustle late in the day about 150km in. In spite of TaG Race team alumni Carson Miles being present in that break .A big mistake on their part as they later finished with no one in the action at all. The next few laps were hard fought to form another group Tommy Schellenberg made it into another great group with 30km to go. But that was absorbed. The final move formed off that…20 year old Reid Kinninberg was there…Braden tried to get across and almost made it as did Tommy. But in the end it would be young Reid that came into the finish.2 riders up the road, but a group of just 9 and Reid finished 8th Elite and 5th u23. Ad he likes you to note. With the Hero from the Giro in his rear view mirror. Joking aside…an incredible day for Reid and truly for the whole team that were in EVERY move that counted. Tommy finished 7th senior elite. Just off the finishing break.
The guys were somewhat shattered. Notable that of the 150 starters…only 40 finished we had 10% of that group.4 riders. Also, with the exception of Tommy, they are 1 and 2 years out of junior and racing 65% of that distance!! So they achieved in every way.
The following night. They found their legs again…and were contenders…amazing what pizza can do…and great directing by Gord and Gillian.
The final breakaway stuck, with Axel Froner, recovered from his 100km breakaway the day before…sprinting to a 5th place Pro Elite.
Next up,Europe for a month!
Lesley T
Cycling Olympian