The Canadian track cyclists won two races at the UCI Champions League debut on Saturday at the Veltrum Ellis Palace in Mallorca, Spain.
Maple Ridge, BC’s Maggie Coles-Leicester won her first championship event by claiming the zero women race, the first of five rounds in which athletes receive points toward final final honors in each of the four categories.
Canadian Maggie Coles-Leicester wins women’s scratch race in Mallorca
Lithuania’s Oliviza Policit and Belarus’ Hanna Chirac followed in 20 rounds, less than the usual 60 rounds.
Kelsey Mitchell, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, followed in the footsteps of her teammates by winning the women’s green. Sherwood Park, Alta, trailed Germany’s Emma Haynes in 0.066 seconds, trailing by six points. Martha Bayona Pineta of Colombia took third place.
Kelsey Mitchell wins Carin Women’s Track Champions League:
In sprinting, Mitchell and fellow Canadian Lorient Genest both won the first qualifying round. They reached the semifinals but failed to qualify for the Mallorca Sprint final.
Ile de la Madeleine finished fifth in the Hugo Barrett final for the Grin men. He also attended the speed event. Coles-Leicester finished sixth in the women’s qualifying round.
New competition, overall format
The new championship will feature the world’s best riders in five rounds at different locations in November and December.
The racing program is the same for each round, with sprint and grin races for runners and elimination and scratch races for endurance riders.
Emma Heinz of Germany and Harry Lafreisen of the Netherlands lead the women’s and men’s sprint championships, respectively.
Britain’s Katie Archibald and New Zealand’s Corbyn Strong topped the men’s and women’s resistance leagues.
The next round of the UCI Champions League will take place on November 27 in Baneves, Lithuania. Round three and four in London will be held at Lee Valley Velo Park on November 3-4 at the Sylvain Adams National Circuit a week before the end of the season. In Tel Aviv on November 11th.
See UCI Track Champions League: Mallorca:
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