Victoria track cyclist Jay Lamoureux and the rest of Canada’s team pursuit squad were unable to pedal to the podium, but they set Canadian records at every stage of the 2020 Summer Games.
The men’s team pursuit squad got better with each of their three contests at the Tokyo Olympics. Those performances culminated in the cyclists beating Germany on Aug. 4, to finish in fifth overall at the Games.
“I’m at a loss for words. We worked so hard for this. 5th at the THE OLYMPICS!” Lamoureux tweeted the morning of Aug. 4.
Lamoureux and his teammates raced to a personal best in the qualifying round, smashing the previous Canadian record. However, their sixth-place qualifying time put them in the bottom four of eight countries competing in team pursuit. That put gold and silver out of reach for the Canadians after their opening race.
READ: Victoria cyclist Jay Lamoureux hits the track in Tokyo next month
The team still had a chance at a bronze medal. The Canadians outdid their qualifying round time by almost four seconds – bettering their own record from the previous day – in their round one race against Germany on Aug. 3. With a fifth-best time of three minutes, 46.769 seconds in the first round, the Canadians were only about two seconds shy of qualifying for the bronze-medal race.
Matched up against the Germans again in the race for fifth, Lamoureux and the other Canadian team pursuit riders capped their time in Tokyo by winning the four-kilometre race and setting another national record. The team was almost half a second quicker in the fifth-place race than they were in round one.
Lamoureux is the latest Olympian from Greater Victoria to have a strong showing in Tokyo. Victoria’s Caileigh Filmer and Saanich’s Emma Entzminger each won bronze medals, in rowing and softball respectively.
READ: Vancouver Islander is Canada’s third Strongest Man
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