The World of Vanderkitten

VK'S Jenny Trew Makes Canadian History At Track Nationals!

Vanderkitten's Jenny Trew, teamed with Giant's Steph Roorda, and Laura Brown made history on August 27th by winning Canada's FIRST EVER Women's Team Pursuit.  They are, by all accounts, the Canadian National Record holders!  They beat out four teams for the Canadian National Record!

Below is Jenny's account of the event:

"Day one of Nationals started out with the men's individual pursuits and all the team pursuits.  For the women, 2008 marked the very first time this event has been held in Canada, so it awarded the winners the National Record.  For my teammates and I, this was a very enviable title.  That having been said, our National governing body isn't exactly what you would call progressive, so it was not given the National Championship title but rather a "National Challenge Event."  In all honesty, it's best that I don't get into that particular rant, especially since there were five women's teams in the competition and only four senior men's teams!

I rode the event with my two former teammates Steph Roorda and Laura Brown.  We were hungry off the start.  As the first team up, we were going to set the time to beat.  We laid down a rather respectable 3:49.3 over 3km!  After the next four heats our new Canadian Record held up as we beat the closest team by 15 seconds!

Next up was the gold medal final where we would be 2-up on the 200m track.  We knew that we had room to improve as two team errors were made in qualifying by going too fast on my first lap (the second team lap) and by pulling up too late through my last pull which gapped me a little and slowed down the team.

Regardless, we headed into the final confident, but a little nervous and eager to best our ride from the morning.  Right off the bat we were on form.  The exchanges were smoother, the pulls stronger, and we were riding much faster that we had in the morning.  Jeremy, our Coach, was calling out the splits and we knew that we were killing it!  Halfway through we saw that we were catching our opponents (in a pursuit final, if you catch the other team/rider on the track you win the round).  By this point we were really pushing it to catch them!  Our pulls were strong and we were riding away from our schedule.  With 1.5 laps to go we overtook the other team to take the gold!

All and all it was an exciting evening and a great way to kick off the National Championships!  Today I get to lie low, but tomorrow evening will be my showcase event, the Points Race!  I'm excited, but Nationals are always an exciting and weird event, so we'll see."

The 2008 Tim Horton's National Track Championships are being held August 27-31, in Burnaby, BC.  To find out more about Canadian Track Nationals, check racing schedules, or view results please click here!