With no breaks and G-force speeds, track cycling kicks biking into high gear. And now recreational athletes from around the Greater Toronto Area can take the sport for a test spin as part of a unique project led by Professor Luke Potwarka and the Town of Milton.
The project is part of a strategic plan to leverage a legacy from the 2015 Pan Am Games and ensure that Milton’s new $56 million velodrome, constructed specifically to host Pan Am and Parapan Am track cycling events, is used to its full potential for years to come.
“From Athens to Beijing, there are many examples of mega sporting venues standing empty after the original event. We are going to make sure that doesn’t happen in Milton. But to do that, we have to work for it.”
- Luke Potwarka
The new 1500-seat velodrome may already have a head start on its legacy — it is one of only two in North America that meets international standards. For the first time, members of the national track cycling team will not have to travel to the United States to train.
“From the outset, the Town of Milton has planned for this facility to operate under two key principles of legacy: a world class cycling facility for Canadian athletes and a community recreation facility for the public. Our goal is to work diligently on both of these fronts to ensure maximum utilization,” said Jennifer Reynolds (pictured), Director of Community Services for the Town of Milton and an alumna of the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences.
To encourage a new generation of track cyclists, Potwarka handed out free try-the-track vouchers to randomly selected spectators after Pan Am cycling competitions at the velodrome. His goal is to not only encourage recreational athletes to take up track cycling, but also to study people that become attracted to the sport, and follow them over several years.
“For the first time we can get baseline data, because very few people have been able to take up track cycling recreationally in our region,” he said. “As a researcher, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to study sport participation in this context.”
