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Canadian track cyclists in fine form heading to worlds

Canada's Steph Roorda, Jasmin Glaesser and Laura Brown train in the Chris Hoy Velodrome ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, July 22, 2014. The Commonwealth Games will start on Wednesday. REUTERS/Andrew Winning (BRITAIN - Tags: SPORT CYCLING) (REUTERS)

It’s been an impressive season for Canada’s track cyclists, but there’s more than just the opposition from other athletes that stands between them and Olympic success later this year.

Canada won medals in a number of events at the three World Cup stops in Colombia, New Zealand and Hong Kong and have the World Championships still to come in March in London as they look to secure Olympic spots.

But all that travel isn’t cheap, and the plunging Canadian dollar hasn’t helped matters.

“I wouldn’t say we’re at a deficit but sometimes we do have to dip into our reserve programs and what we may perceive as the fat in the program,” said Jacques Landry, High Performance Director with Cycling Canada.

“We might have to cut that off and go bare bones without compromising the quality of what we need to get out of the programs but sometimes there is some re-shuffling that needs to happen.”

To prepare for the World Championships that runs March 2-6, on the same track in London where Canada won bronze in the first-ever Olympic women’s pursuit in 2012, the team will train in Los Angeles for a camp this month.

The new velodrome in Milton, Ont., built for last summer’s Pan Am Games, has become the home of the track program in Canada, but the elements factor into where camps are held, and weather more than finances can dictate the program. Even track cyclists have to spend some time on the road, and Ontario winters aren’t normally conducive to laying down quality base miles outdoors.

“Our endurance programs have to travel to wherever we can get good base miles and good quality miles,” Landry said over the phone from San Diego where he was working with some Canadians in more favourable conditions. “That means heading south of the border, which we’re in right now. With the greenback, we’re taking it on that one.”

With their money not going as far as it once did, the Milton venue will help ease some of the financial burden of taking cyclists, staff members, and equipment south of the border less often for training camps. It will be crucial to their Olympic preparations once temperatures rise and the team can spend time outside on the road, as well.

“It’s massive. I think the biggest thing is centralizing all of the staff and the people that we work with,” said Steph Roorda, a member of the women’s pursuit team that’s a gold medal threat after a strong World Cup season. In the three World Cup events, the pursuit team picked up two gold and one silver medal.

“It’s one thing having us riders living everywhere but coming together at a place where our coaches, our physiologists, our doctor, physio, and gym coach are all centralized there and it’s really fantastic to have everyone there and it makes things so easy.”