Top sprinters touring Alberta
EDMONTON — In the world of cycling, there’s nothing more exciting than a sprint and for six Alberta communities, late summer will be one to remember.
The Tour of Alberta, which will run Sept. 3-8, announced Thursday that six stops along the 900-kilometre provincewide bike tour will give people a chance to experience sprint cycling up close and personal.
Fort Saskatchewan and Ardrossan will be the first sprint stops Sept. 4, with the final sprint coming at the culmination of the tour in Calgary on Sept. 8.
“It’s the thing that people like to see. It’s going to be exciting from the standpoint that you’re going to have several teams that are going to have dedicated sprinters,” said Tour of Alberta chairman Brian Jolly.
“Just like the Tour de France this year, there were four guys neck-andneck for the last 200 metres and it was a very, very close call at the end when the guy won the sprint, so it’s going to be very fast and exciting for people to watch.”
Fifteen top international cycling teams — including the Canadian national team — will compete in the Tour, with eight riders on each team. The final team rosters will be announced next month.
Bringing that element of pure speed and excitement to the Tour will be just one part of the race to keep an eye on. There are several races within the event itself that organizers are hoping capture the imagination of spectators, many of whom will be watching their very first bike race in person.
“There’s a general classification competition, which is for the overall winner, there’s the sprint competition, there’s the king of the mountains competition and there’s the best Canadian rider competition. All of which produce excitement within the race that people can watch and select who they support,” Jolly explained.
With the Tour now just weeks away, the finishing touches are being put in place by Jolly and company, whose biggest hurdle over the last few months resulted from the flooding in southern Alberta. That led to the Tour moving a stage from the Canmore area to Black Diamond, southwest of Calgary, largely due to the state of Highway 40.
“I think we’ve cleared that hurdle now,” Jolly said with respect to contingency plans after the flooding. “We have a very challenging circuit that’s being put together around Black Diamond.”
While Canmore won’t be the scene of this year’s event, the Tour plans on going to the community next year.
In the meantime, Jolly’s seen no shortage of excitement from the host of cities and towns that are ready for September to roll around.
“The enthusiasm is just unbelievable from some of these communities,” Jolly said. “They’re learning very quickly and they’ve been very well organized in terms of putting things together and it’s not just the bike race, it’s all the festival atmosphere that goes around it that helps to create the excitement and fun that people are looking for.
“That’s what happens on the big tours like the Tour de France. They go crazy in these towns for the Tour de France. It’s a closed down day just about and you’re going to have the same things happening here.”