Less than a month to BC Superweek

Canada’s biggest cycling event

~ Canadian Olympians and top Pro riders commit to local races

“Faster, Higher, Stronger:” With the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing on the horizon, BC Superweek is taking the Olympic motto to heart with 10 days of cycling that continues to attract past, present and future Olympians from Canada and beyond.

With even more prize money added to what was already Canada’s richest cycling event, BC Superweek’s growing reputation as one of the best events in North America matches its impressive history of riders, an impressive list that includes past Canadian Olympians like Brian Walton, Alison Sydor, Eric Wohlberg, and Gord Fraser; top pro cyclists like Kirk O’Bee, and Alex Stieda, the first North American to win a stage at the Tour de France, and even seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

“This is the best run race that I know of in North America,” says Walton, a three-time Olympian and 1996 Silver Medalist who returns annually from Philadelphia, where he is now the VP in charge of Performance and a partner in Cadence Cycling and Multisport Centers. “Initially it was one of the best, but it is second to none now.”

With an exciting new race format to kick things off in Delta this year, buzz from crowds of 25,000-plus at the BC Cancer Foundation Tour de Gastown, the growth of the Giro di Burnaby, and the history of the scenic Tour de White Rock, it’s only getting better.

Canada’s biggest 10 days of cycling, with 8 races and $70,000 in prize money, attracts riders from North America’s biggest teams like Navigators Insurance. And Thursday, BC Superweek got confirmations from Bissel Pro Cycling and Health Net Pro Cycling’s O’Bee, a three-time U.S. national champion. The big names don’t surprise local star (and likely Olympian) Svein Tuft, who along with his teammates on the Vancouver area-based Symmetrics Pro Cycling team, hears plenty of feedback about BC Superweek during their annual travels to compete in the biggest races all over the world.

“BC Superweek is always the talk of the Pro circuit,” says Tuft, who is a household name in cycling south of the border (Eight million Americans watched Tuft win the 2007 US Open on NBC, almost twice as many as watched the Red Wings raise the Stanley Cup last week). “All the top pros have either been or want to come. Their comments are always the same: Super hard racing, on the best courses in the best communities in North America. We are always proud to say we are from the Vancouver.”

The feeling should be mutual. Tuft is one of four Symmetrics riders with a good shot to join teammate Zach Bell, who won the Tour de Delta Omnium last year and has already been selected for the Olympic track team, on this year’s Canadian squad. All will be at Superweek, including Tsawwassen’s own Cam Evans, who overcame a horrific accident to become Canada’s defending National Road Race champion last year, and also won the BC Provincial championship at Vancouver’s Westside Classic June 1.

North Vancouver’s Andrew Pinfold, and Christian Meier, a New Brunswick-born rider who now lives in Langley, are all also in the pool of potential Olympians when Canada finalizes its team after the June 15. In fact, the success of the Symmetrics team, which coincides with the rise of BC Superweek, is directly responsible for the increase in the number of Olympic spots available to Canada because spots are awarded based on each country’s point totals in UCI events, and last year the all-Canadian Symmetrics squad became the North American team to ever win the UCI America tour.

For all their success internationally, Symmetrics is now known as “Canada’s team” at the they attend all over North America. But few of those stops compare to the treatment that riders receive at BC Superweek, just one reason some of the biggest teams attend.

“It truly has grown to something we should all be proud of,” says Tuft, who was also the top individual rider on last year’s UCI Americas Tour, and a three-time Canadian Time Trial champion. “The organizers have attracted the most amazing talent from all areas of the world and we get to race on the coolest, hardest courses in front of thousand of hometown crazy fans. These races have grown to be the top events we go to.”

BC Superweek starts with the $25,000 Tour de Delta from July 11 to 13, kicking off with the all-new Brenco Prologue, with special time-trial bikes blasting down a large steel ramp and onto a quick 3-km course, with top speeds expected to reach 60 km/hour.

“Everything is different in a prologue and that’s great for cycling fans and spectators,” says Mark Ernsting, a five-time Canadian National Champion on track who is preparing for his first year as the Tour de Delta’s Race Director in place of John McMurchy, who left to work with VANOC. “They will be riding designated time trial bikes, which have major differences in design and geometry, and are purely for top-end speed.”

The Tour de Delta continues with the Lehigh Cement Criterium (a criterium, or “crit” is a multi-lap race through city streets) on Saturday, and the gruelling White Spot Road Race on Sunday. BC Superweek then continues at the crowd-pleasing Gastown Criterium on Wednesday, July 16, and the Giro di Burnaby Criterium the next night.

Superweek wraps up with the 29^th Tour de White Rock July 18-20, a challenging three-event weekend (HomelIfe Hillclimb, Bosa Properties Criterium and Peace Arch News Road Race) with a storied history that includes serving as Canada’s pre-Olympic camp in 1992, fitting given many of this year’s participants are headed to Beijing.

“Tour de White Rock is one of the most beautiful and challenging courses we do in the world,” says Tuft. ”There isn't a single race that compares to the difficulty and beauty. To win a race with so much history is something all top cyclists want on their resume.”

 
For more BC Superweek information visit our website at www.bcsuperweek.ca, or arrange for photos of, and interviews with, the past and present Canadian Olympians and top professional cyclists as BC Superweek approaches, please contact Kevin Woodley, Media Relations Coordinator, at 604-828-5842.