Canada's Mathias Guillemette turning heads after claiming UCI Champions League division lead
After pair of top 6 finishes in Berlin, Quebecer sits atop men's Endurance standings
Canada's Mathias Guillemette is taking the track cycling world by storm.
The 20-year-old Canadian's emergence was so abrupt that a reporter admitted to not having heard of Guillemette until his newfound success at a press conference on Wednesday.
"I am very young," Guillemette, of Trois-Rivières, Que., said. "This is one of my first big races ever, so that might be why you've never heard of me."
Two legs into the five-stint Champions League competition across Europe, the 2022 Commonwealth Games competitor sits atop the men's endurance standings courtesy of 55 points accumulated across the first two events in Mallorca, Spain and Berlin, Germany.
The third Champions League event begins Saturday in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, which will host the cycling events during the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics. Guillemette admitted there is a little more on the line now that he will be wearing the blue leader's jersey.
"For the elimination I think I'm still OK, I'll just ride it the same way I always do and take risks all the way," Guillemette said. "For the scratch I'm just going to try and defend.
This season marks Guillemette's first in the two-year-old Champions League that was created as an attempt to create innovation in the sport and engage more fans around the world.
"It's great," he said. "The racing is the same, there's definitely more spectators than normal so that's different… I love it."
The two events in which Guillemette competes at the Champions League level are known as elimination and scratch races. In the former, a racer is cut every two laps, meanwhile the scratch event is a straight-up race — first one across the line wins.
🏆League Leaders after the 2nd round in Berlin:<br><br>🚴 ♀️ Endurance League<br>Jennifer Valente 🇺🇸 & Mathias Guillemette 🇨🇦<br><br>🚴 Sprint League<br>Martha Bayona 🇨🇴 & Harrie Lavreysen 🇳🇱<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UCITCL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UCITCL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TrackCycling?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TrackCycling</a> <a href="https://t.co/jiCq9qtKeE">pic.twitter.com/jiCq9qtKeE</a>
—@UCITCLGuillemette is among five Canadians competing in Champions League. The group also includes Olympic gold medallist Kelsey Mitchell, world scratch champion Dylan Bibic, Maggie Coles-Lyster and Sarah van Dam.
Mitchell is the second seed in women's sprint. In the women's endurance equivalent, van Dam and Coles-Lyster are placed fourth and sixth respectively. Bibic, 19, is 11th on the men's endurance leader board.
