Guadalajara Experience: Para Panamerican Games 2011: The Velodrome

I'm getting lazy…Forgot to write something yesterday.

Lynn and Robbi: Gold number 3

Another golden day for the team of Robbi Weldon and Lynn Bessette. One kilometer. In track cycling terms it is “The Kilo”. It begins from a dead start and they go full tilt for 4 laps. A lung searing quad trashing event. It doeasn’t last long and minuscule errors can cost you a medal. The pilot has full sight and the back cyclist is visually impaired and they are reaching speeds near 50-60 km per hour.

This was Robbi and Lynn’s 3^rd Gold medal…and their favored event has yet to come: the road race in 3 days.

I truly enjoy the velodrome. It is a scene of tremendous power and skill.

A gold medal ride

Daniel Chalifour and his pilot Ed Veal blew away expectations and had the ride of their life 2 days ago and came up golden in the pursuit: where 2 cyclists, in this event 2 tandems, start at opposing sides of the track and start for their distance while comparing times per lap. They were almost caught form behind but kept to the strategic and scientific game plan from coach Eric Van den Eynde and had enough in the tank to outlast the opponent by a fraction of a second. Unfortunately I wasn’t there but heard it was the most exciting event the cycling team has witnessed so far. You can see part of that race on the CPC website and Facebook site.

Ed Veal and Daniel Chalifour

Yesterday in their Kilo event, they won silver and were short of gold by 0.07 second.

Ed and Daniel at the office, hard at work. 60 km and hour!

I am impressed at their performances with their physical differences. Matthieu Parent was cooking around that track at an average of 43 KM per hour for 4000 metres with only his left leg. Jaye Milley, born with congenital absence of hands and feet, had a great event as well. His road bike is rigged up with all sorts of adaptive devices and he brakes with the push of a lever with his rear end. Try going downhill fast with that set up. He impressed me a lot. He even impresses some of the cyclist team staff members who have elite cycling experience themselves. A great team to work with yesterday.