Cycling on track with two-medal showing

Raphael Gagne’s face was caked in mud, his body beaten up, but there was pride in his expression at the end of the men’s mountain bike race Sunday at the Olympic Games.

In a way, it was that kind of Olympics for the Canadian cycling team, which had some success, some near misses and some hard knocks, on the whole living up to expectations and leaving with a pair of bronze medals from a dozen competitions.

That’s about the number Cycling Canada set as a goal. But before Catharine Pendrel won a bronze in mountain bike on Saturday, things were looking a little thin.

“We’re pretty happy with the two,” Canadian high performance director Jacques Landry said. “We would have liked three, but this is a good result.”

Canada also won a bronze medal in the women’s team pursuit in track cycling thanks to the efforts of Jasmin Glaesser, Allison Beveridge, Kirsti Lay and Georgia Simmerling.

Emily Batty finished fourth in the women’s mountain bike race, Tory Nyhaug was fifth in the BMX final and Tara Whitten placed seventh in the women’s road cycling time trial. Beveridge finished 11th in women’s omnium after crashing in the first of six points races.

The results were not as good in road cycling, the other track events and the men’s mountain bike, where Leandre Bouchard of Alma, Que., was 27th and Gagne, of Quebec City, was pulled from the race after getting lapped. “It was a hard race,” Gagne said. “I just felt off physically. I gave it all I had and I dug deep but I didn’t feel like I was at my best on the day.”

Landry admitted there were some events where Canadians could have been “a bit luckier.”

“All in all, we are pretty satisfied with the overall outcome of these Games,” he said. “In some cases we’re looking at it from a longer view, to get some younger athletes experience in Rio so we can look forward to Tokyo and onward.”

One of the concerns for Canada is the fact only one BMX rider even qualified to compete in the Olympics.