Canadian nationals: Beveridge takes women's road race

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Rally Cycling's Allison Beveridge, an Olympic bronze medalist on the track, became the the Canadian women's road champion on Saturday in Ottawa, capping a dominating performance by the Rally team, which put four riders in the final ten-rider breakaway.

The ten kilometre circuit 'T' shaped circuit along the Ottawa River did not feature any significant climbs, however, gusty winds discouraged solo breakaways. A four rider break containing Alison Jackson (Be Pink), Karol-Ann Canuel (Boels Dolman), Sara Bergen (Rally) and Jamie Gilgen (Rise Racing) went clear late in lap two of the 12 lap, 120 kilometre race. The break reached a high of 46 seconds by lap four and then began to shrink, although the peloton began shedding riders as the chase strung the field out.

However, Canuel and Jackson were keeping the pace high in the break and the gap began to grow again; up to 50 seconds with five laps to go. That lap proved to be decisive, as a chase group of six jumped away from the field and joined the leaders with less than 40 kilometres to go. That group included three more Rally riders - Beveridge, Kirsti Lay and Sarah Poidevin - plus Steph Roorda (Sho Air Twenty20), Catherine Ouellette (The Cyclery-4iiii) and Karlee Gendron (Rise Racing). Jasmin Duehring (Sho Air Twenty20) tried to bridge across but came up 30 seconds short as the four Rally riders began to drive the pace.

Coming into the final ten kilometres, Rally tried launching attacks to get a rider clear, but Canuel and Jackson quickly shut down those attempts, setting up a ten rider sprint. Rally went through the final corner with 200 metres to go with Beveridge on third wheel behind Poidevin and Lay, and she came off Lay's wheel with 100 metres to go to take the title, followed by Lay and Jackson in third.

"It's a bit weird to be honest," admitted Beveridge, "I didn't think going in that I could do it. But we had the strongest team here and when we stacked the break with four Rally riders in ten total, we knew we had to do it. It was hard, we had a couple of girls really commit to pushing the break, but it was a bit of a balancing game, trying not to use all our energy. It's not something I ever though I could do, but this course suits a track rider. With the team we had, all I had to do was go out there and finish it off."

"I know I have a lot of fitness from being in Europe from a lot of high speed races," said Jackson. "So it wasn't so bad, and at Nationals, where there aren't so many teams, you can get a lot of team. I thought the Rally riders would attack more. Into the final corner I was in good position on third wheel, and then a couple of the Rally girls came up for their leadout and I went to fifth wheel into the corner ... I needed to be on Ally's [Allison Beveridge] wheel for the final sprint. They did a great job."

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