Cycling Canada pauses women’s track cycling pursuit team, 2028 Olympics unclear

Cycling Canada applying the brakes to its women’s track pursuit team has drawn criticism from a rider and a former rider.

Cycling Canada will not enter a women’s pursuit team in track cycling’s world championship in October, even though Canada has qualified to race in it.

That puts the team’s status for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles in doubt. The world championship in Shanghai is the first Olympic qualifier for 2028.

“I started track in 2022, so I was very aware of constantly fighting for your spot on a team,” said team member Fiona Majendie.

“I was happy to do that and prove myself, but I never thought that the team would just be cut and that you don’t have that opportunity to even fight for yourself anymore.”

In team pursuit, two teams of four riders start on opposite sides of the velodrome, aiming for the fastest time or to beat the other team.

Cycling Canada will enter a men’s pursuit team in the world championship, said chief executive officer Mathieu Boucher.

Women’s team pursuit has been a strong event for Canada historically, with an Olympic bronze medal in 2012, another bronze four years later in 2016 and fourth in 2021.

Canada ranks 12th in the world in women’s team pursuit and the men 13th.

The men are trending, through their power testing and competition times, to be more competitive than the women, said Boucher.

Canada’s men placed eighth and the women 10th in April at a World Cup in Hong Kong.

The men’s time was just over a second outside the top six and a second and a half outside the top four, Boucher said, while the women were nine seconds outside the top six and 12 seconds outside the top four.

“Based on what we’ve seen in competition over the last 18 months, certainly the men are showing that the gap is smaller to reach that top four, top six,” Boucher said Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, the hard reality is that with the current composition of the team, we don’t foresee that the women’s team pursuit can be competitive as we need to be to continue to receive funding for the program, to continue to get sponsorship and to justify the investment.”

Boucher insists Cycling Canada isn’t abandoning the women’s team pursuit program. He left the door open for the women’s pursuit team to compete in 2028.

“If we see amazing talent and we can demonstrate that with proper training, we can be competitive, we’re going to find the money to qualify the team for L.A. and to be competitive,” Boucher said Tuesday.

But Boucher wrote earlier this month in a response to athletes’ concerns, “while considering that some improvement was possible, it is unlikely that the team’s improvement will be sufficient to qualify for and be competitive at the 2028 Olympic Games.”

Women’s endurance coach Phil Abbott told athletes in a May 5 email that the plan was “a return to international team pursuit competition in 2027 focused on the objective of Brisbane 2032.”

Majendie says she was never informed of performance standards that determined whether a program continued or not.

She believes rapid improvement is possible.

Majendie made Canada’s 2024 Olympic team as an alternate two years after starting track cycling. She raced for the Canadian team that placed fourth at the world championship that same year.

“I’ve literally closed the gap in two years myself, so it is possible,” said the 28-year-old from Vancouver. “It’s not right to be able to take away athletes’ opportunities to improve.”

Two-time Olympian Ariane Bonhomme of Gatineau, Que., retired in January after she was told she would no longer be a “carded” athlete eligible for monthly Athletes Assistance Program cheques.

“When they told me that they weren’t renewing my carding, I asked them, ‘So you’re getting rid of the team pursuit? Why are you getting rid of your best, most experienced rider if your plan is to go to the Olympics in the team pursuit?'” Bonhomme recalled.

“It was easier for them to first blame it on us, and secondly, just thin out the team enough that they could justify getting rid of it.”

Bonhomme raced for teams that finished fourth in Tokyo’s Olympic Games and eighth in 2024 in Paris.

“The girls from Rio and the girls from Tokyo and the girls from London, they were special, but they weren’t like physical, absolute talent beasts,” Bonhomme said.

“They’re the same people as we have now. The only difference is that they had direction, they knew where they were going, and they had coaches that cared. The girls we have right now are so talented.”

A week after the federal government announced an additional $660 million in funding for national sports organizations, Abbott’s email to athletes cited “budgetary constraints” among the reasons for pausing the women’s pursuit team.

“The money is not in the system as of now, and when that’s going to come our way, we don’t know,” Boucher said. “We have to respect that there’s a process that needs to be in place to be able to distribute that money.

“If we have more money, absolutely, we need to invest more in the women’s team pursuit program.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press