3 Top Canadian Women Roadies Look Ahead to 2017
Leah Kirchmann will be back on the same European outfit that she joined in 2016. In 2017, the squad will be known as Team Sunweb. Kirchmann had a good inaugural season with the team. Early in 2016, she won Drentse Acht van Westerveld and was top-10 at five other spring races. She pulled on the leader’s jersey after the prologue of the Giro d’italia Internazionale Femminile on July 1. Her strong racing throughout the season placed her second overall in the first year of the uci women’s Worldtour. For 2017, Kirchmann’s role within the team is set to grow. “I expect to share the leadership responsibilities with several high-profile riders joining the program,” she said. Dutch rider Lucinda Brand and U.S. rider Coryn Rivera are two new signings with the team. “I hope to have a strong Spring Classics season. I’m especially looking forward to the two new races on the women’s Worldtour calendar: Amstel Gold and Liège–bastogne–liège.”
Competing in the Rio Olympics was a 2016 goal for Joëlle Numainville. Frustratingly for the Montreal rider, she wasn’t selected for the squad. Despite that setback, Numainville put in some strong performances in the second half of her season: a win at the White Spot/delta Road Race, fourth at La Course, third at the Grand Prix de Plouay-bretagne and ninth at the world championship road race. (She was 11th at worlds in 2015.)
“Now, the way I race is so different. I just do it for myself,” said the rider who feels freer after her exclusion from the Olympic squad. “I’m so much more mellow and confident. I do my best and whatever happens, happens.”
Numainville is targeting a full season with her new U.S.based team Cylance Pro Cycling. While she does hope to compete in early spring races in Europe, she plans to have a strong block of racing in North America. “I will be there from Gila to Cascades,” she said referring to the two races that will bookend her campaign in the U.S. and Canada, April’s Tour of the Gila and July’s Cascade Cycling Classic. She also hopes to compete in the Tour of California, Gatineau and BC Superweek.
Sara Poidevin’s first year as a professional on Rally Cycling was strong. The Calgary-based rider won the climber’s jersey at the Redlands Bicycle Classic this past April. She had two top-five stage finishes at the Tour of the Gila in May. In July, she picked up another jersey: youth classification at the Cascade Cycling Classic. Poidevin will be back with Rally for 2017.
“The team was a great fit for me last year,” she said. “For 2017, I’m hoping to build on results at the Tour of the Gila and Redlands Classic. As well, I am looking forward to having a second chance racing the Tour of California and the Philadelphia International Bicycle Classic, where I had some bad luck with crashes this past year.”