| Friday July 14, 2000 Jeanson in tears after Hughes
retains time trial crown
BILL BEACON
Ottawa Citizen
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. (CP) - There was an awkward moment at
the podium Thursday when Genevieve Jeanson hesitated to accept second prize at the
Canadian cycling championships.
The 18-year-old sensation from Montreal had been beaten by
six seconds in the individual time trial by four-time champion Clara Hughes of Winnipeg,
but confusion over traffic on the course had prompted a protest.
The race commissioners met for two hours and decided Hughes
was not at fault for racing the final kilometre of the 27.6-kilometre route on the wrong
side of the road.
And it was Hughes' withering comment: "That's so
bad,", in response to Jeanson's unwillingness to step to the podium despite her name
being called, that prompted Jeanson to ignore her angry entourage and step onto the podium
to accept second prize.
"I don't want to say anything about it," Jeanson
said afterward, before going to her team van for a long cry.
"I think she showed a lot of class going to the
podium," said Hughes. "If that was me in that position, I wouldn't have accepted
the (winner's) jersey.
"I said that, and then she made up her own mind and
went up."
Immediately after the race, Jeanson had been quite content
with her performance. She and Hughes, the 1996 Olympic bronze medallist, had finished more
than two minutes ahead of the next closest rider, Leah Goldstein of Vancouver.
She had proven to the committee that will select Canada's
Olympic team after the four-day meet ends on Sunday that she deserved to go to the 2000
Games in Sydney, Australia.
"I knew I had a good time," Jeanson had said.
"I was in total control.
"I did what I wanted and that's why I'm so
happy."
But her somewhat excitable coach, Andre Aubut, wanted a
protest.
Aubut said Hughes gained time by taking the last tight
corner wide and "drafting" behind cars moving in the lane next to the race
course.
Hughes said she was misdirected into the wrong lane by
officials at the turn and lost time by having to brake to avoid a pick-up truck that had
found its way onto the course, and then for slow-moving cars in her lane.
"It's unfortunate, " said Hughes, 27, a four-time
national time trial champion. "If they can't control traffic, they should have
started the race out in the country somewhere."
Aubut was unmmoved.
"I don't want to say anything about Clara, but as an
experienced athlete, she should know where she has to go," he said.
A panel of five cycling officials will pick a three-women
team to compete in Sydney. All three will be in the road race, and two of them will also
compete in the time trial - in which riders race alone against the clock on a street
course.
Canadian Cycling Association official Pierre Hutsebaut said
Jeanson earned points by nearly matching Hughes in the time trial, but the protest
"doesn't help" her standing with the panel.
"This (the trials) are not like a goal in soccer, they
are one component of the committee's decision," added Hutsebaut. "How the
committee will decide, I don't know, but if I were in their shoes, I'd say Genevieve did
very well.
"It's the first time she can be directly compared to
Clara and she helped her cause by being so close."
Jeanson is one of Canada's most promising young riders
ever.
After sweeping the road race and time trials at the junior
world championships last year, she won her first race as a senior - the five-day Tour de
Snowy in Australia in March.
She later won the one-day Fleche Wallonne in Belgium -
giving her two wins in her first three international events as a senior.
But now the pressure's on for another big performance in
Sunday's road race, where Hughes and Lyne Bessette of Knowlton, Que., who both ride for
the Saturn team, will work in tandem to try to get one another onto the Olympic team.
Bessette was fifth in the time trial.
"Maybe I have to do more, but I'm not going into the
road race in that frame of mind," said Jeanson. "I'm just trying to be the
best."
Burlington, Ont., native Eric Wohlberg won the men's time
trial - his third consecutive national title - by more than two minutes over Toronto's
Andrew Randell.
The men did not qualify to race the time trial in Sydney,
but will have a four-man squad in the Olympic road race.
Dominique Rollin of Boucherville, Que., took the junior
men's time trial, while Raphaele Lemieux of Notre-Dame-du-Portage, Que., won in the junior
women's event.
Reprinted with permission
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