Canada’s H3 handcycling team seeks to rebound after underwhelming finishes in the time trial event at Tokyo.
Alex Hyndman, Joey Desjardins, and Charles Moreau rounded out the three Canucks who participated in a 16-rider field for the men’s H3 time trials Tuesday morning in Tokyo (8:40 p.m. Monday EST).
With strong representation, Canada was eagerly watching as starting horn sounded, sending the trio on a 24-kilometre journey (three laps of eight kilometres) around the Fuji Speedway in Oyama, Japan.
Hyndman and Desjardins made their Paralympic debuts during this event, finishing 16th and 11th respectively.
Desjardins held third place as he passed the 16-kilometre checkpoint (racers leave individually in timed increments), but relinquished that position, sliding down eight spots by the time all was said and done.
Moreau may be more disappointed with his result. In Rio 2016 he captured a bronze in this event; however, five years later, he moved down nine places, finishing 12th with a time of 47:00.95.
Austrian Walter Ablinger won gold with a time of 43:39.17.
Having a short memory would benefit the Canadians, as another event is just around the corner – the H3 road race, which will take place at the Fuji Speedway Wednesday at 1:20 a.m. EST (2:20 p.m. Tokyo time).
All three men will be participating in this race, which also has a field of 16.
There are several noteworthy differences between the road race and time trial. Firstly, it is a mass start event, in contrast to the time trial, which is individually timed in staggered intervals.
Furthermore, the road race is much longer than the time trial – over three times as long, to be exact – consisting of six laps of 13.2 kilometres for a total of 79.2 kilometres.
Moreau, a native of Victoriaville, Que. is the defending Paralympic bronze medalist in this event.
Desjardins and Hyndman will be competing in their first Paralympic road race, but have experience in this event through world championships and qualifiers.