| July 17, 2000 Jeanson makes Olympic
team, with help from new-found friends Hughes and Bessette
BILL BEACON
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. - Only a few days earlier, it had looked
like war between cycling prodigy Genevieve Jeanson and her rivals, Lyne Bessette and Clara
Hughes.
But the three acted like a team in the women's road race at
the Canadian cycling championships Sunday, earning the 18-year-old Jeanson a trip to the
2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
In what Jeanson called "a race within a race,"
the Lachine, Que., native earned an automatic berth on Canada's team by finishing first
among the five riders who had previously met Olympic qualifying standards.
Bessette and Hughes were also chosen Sunday night by a
seven-person selection committee.
Czeslaw Lukaszwicz of Chateaugay, Que., earned one berth by
winning the 224-kilometre men's road race ahead of Gord Fraser of Nepean, Ont. and Brian
Walton of North Delta, B.C.
Fraser, a sprint specialist, is also assured of going to
Sydney because he is Canada's top-ranked racer. Walton and Eric Wohlberg of Levack, Ont.,
were also selected.
"Lyne and I are both happy," said Hughes, the
veteran on a women's team with a good shot at winning at least one medal in Sydney.
"We want Genevieve on the team with us.
"We think we're the strongest group to represent
Canada. Our plan worked. I'm so happy with the outcome."
Sandy Espeseth of Victoria actually won the wet
119-kilometre race, leading in a group of eight that split early on from the main pack to
finish the nine laps of a 13.2-kilometre street course in three hours eight minutes 59
seconds.
The five favourites stayed back in an agonizingly
slow-moving peleton, watching one another like hawks and chasing down any attempts to
break away.
"I decided not to attack because it would do me no
good," said Jeanson, last year's world junior champion in both road racing and the
time trial. "The girls from the Saturn team (Bessette and Hughes) were great.
"They gave me a chance."
Hughes, a double bronze medallist at the 1996 Games in
Atlanta, had all but cinched an Olympic berth on Thursday, when she edged Jeanson in a
controversial time trial.
So Hughes let Bessette break into a sprint as they neared
the finish line, giving her teammate the chance for an automatic berth.
But she was just as pleased to see Jeanson follow on
Bessette's rear wheel and then roar by.
"I heard Lyne say: 'Go, go,' so I went hard,"
said Jeanson, who finished 19th overall. "I was surprised and delighted.
"I just wanted to win my place in Sydney. I was the
least experienced of the group and I knew I had to win."
"When she passed, I was glad it was Genevieve,"
added Bessette. "I wanted it to be me, her and Clara on the team, so I said go,
go."
The two other candidates, Anne Samplonius of Oakville,
Ont., and Annie Gariepy of Bromont, Que., who both had club teammates in the pack, were
left behind.
A glowering Gariepy felt ganged-up upon and was not happy
that the favourites didn't try to win the race.
"I had to win, but it was such a negative race,"
she said. "I didn't think it would be like that.
"I thought we would race and the strongest would
win."
After the time trial last Thursday, when Jeanson's coach,
Andre Aubut, protested Hughes' victory, there looked to be bad blood between the camps.
Jeanson was rebuked by Hughes when the young rider's
entourage held her back from the post-race podium ceremony.
Jeanson may have won Hughes and Bessette over by deciding
on her own to step up and accept second place. And Aubut wrote an apology to the Canadian
Cycling Association.
"Genevieve and I talked about it later," said
Hughes. "There were no hard feelings.
"I respect her and I know she respects me. I'm looking
forward to going to Sydney with her. I think we'll have one of the strongest teams
there."
Fraser led a six-man break on only the second of the 17
laps in the men's race and was among the lead riders for the next 190 kilometres.
But he had no legs when the 36-year-old Lukaszwicz caught
up and passed him on the final lap, winning by nearly two minutes in 5:17:33.
"I wanted to ride and be dead at the end of the race -
and now, I'm dead," said the panting Lukaszwicz, a native of Poland who won the
national title for a fourth time.
It will be his first trip to the Olympics.
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