When Canadian Cycling Magazine broke the story that Cycling Canada announced it was pausing its women’s team pursuit program and would not be sending a women’s team pursuit squad to this year’s world championships in Shanghai, China, the governing body presented the news as a final decision. The response online, from the athlete’s open letter to Cycling Canada to the immediate and massive show of support for the current athletes and the team pursuit program, suggests this discussion was just getting started.
Now, five athletes from the women’s team pursuit program are filing an appeal against Cycling Canada. The CBC reports that Skyler Goudswaard, Fiona Majendie, Jenna Nestman, Lily Plante, and Justine Thomas have filed an appeal with Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada. That appeal challenges Cycling Canada’s decision not to send a women’s team pursuit squad to 2026 world championships.
Selection woes at Cycling Canada
The five riders are being represented by Amanda Fowler and Dr. Emir Crowne. If those names sound familiar, it could be because they recently represented Dylan Bibic as he successfully fought Cycling Canada to race the omnium at 2025 world championships. The two cases bear some similarity, as unfair assessment and selection criteria are central to both cases.
“As reflected in public reporting, the athletes received no meaningful notice before an entire program was cut, eliminating a critical Olympic pathway,” Fowler and Dr. Crowne argue in a joint statement.
In the case of the women’s team pursuit program, though, the appeal also questions whether the athlete’s gender factored unfairly into the decision.
“The decision raises serious questions about fairness, consistency, and whether female athletes are being afforded the same opportunity to compete and progress as the men’s program,” Fowler and Dr. Crowne added.
As has been pointed out repeatedly, Cycling Canada has cancelled the women’s team pursuit program, but not the men’s. This despite the women’s program being, historically, the much more successful of the two programs.
A matter of performance?
In a conversation with Canadian Cycling Magazine, Cycling Canada CEO Mathieu Boucher argued that, while the news may not have been communicated in the best way, the decision to cut the women’s team pursuit program was made on the basis of performance.
Kevin Field, a past head of performance strategy at Cycling Canada and a past DS to numerous pro teams, told Canadian Cycling Magazine that the decision and the way it was communicated reveal larger problems at the national sport organisation.
“Whether it’s a private team or a national sports organizations high-performance (NSO HP) program, there is a duty of athlete care and a responsibility to handle these kinds of decisions with humanity, competence and dignity,” Field says, referring to the way Cycling Canada made and communicated its decision.
That points to a larger, ongoing issue Field sees at the organization that extends beyond the women’s team pursuit program.
“I don’t actually think the central issue is women’s team pursuit specifically. I think it’s whether the system is coherent,” Field told CCM. “Do people understand how decisions are made? Do they believe the standards are applied consistently?Do athletes feel supported when things go wrong? Right now, it feels like there’s a gap between performance language and lived understanding. And that gap appears to create mistrust.”