Nick Wammes competes at the Tokyo Olympics (Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com, courtesy of Cycling Canada)Nick Wammes competes at the Tokyo Olympics (Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com, courtesy of Cycling Canada)
Chatham

Wammes reflects on first Olympic experience

Exciting and a lot to take in.

Those are just some of the words Nick Wammes used to describe his debut Olympics.

The 21-year-old from cyclist from Bothwell represented Canada at the Tokyo Games in track cycling, competing in the men's sprint and keirin.

Wammes failed to qualify for the quarter-finals in the keirin, but in sprint qualifying, he had a personal-best time of 9.587 seconds for 200 metres to finish 12th out of 30 riders. He then beat two-time world champion Stefan Boetticher of Germany to make it to the 1/16 finals before losing in the repechage.

Nick Wammes competes at the Tokyo Olympics (Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com, courtesy of Cycling Canada)

"It was good, I was really happy with it. The sprint went well and I was happy with the result, and I raced well. I wasn't really happy with the keirin, but yeah, it was a good experience."

The Izu velodrome in Shizuoka, Japan where the track cycling events took place was one of the only Olympic venues to have fans in the stands.

"It was nice, I mean we don't usually have a lot of crowds at one of our competitions anyway," said Wammes. "But, yeah, it was the Olympic Games and it's nice to have a crowd in the stands."

While Wammes was at the Olympics, he also got to watch his teammates compete. Lauriane Genest won bronze in the women's keirin, and Kelsey Mitchell won gold in the women's sprint.

"It was pretty special, watching the Canadian flag rise inside the track, inside the velodrome was pretty cool. watching Kelsey win was really cool. We all got to sing O Canada, it was great."

Wammes did not get to attend the closing ceremonies. He said they were at the track that morning to watch Mitchell compete, then they headed back to their accommodations to pack up because their flight out of Japan was early the next morning.

Now that the Olympics are over, Wammes won't get much a break. He said he gets about two weeks off, then it's back to training because he has more races coming up this fall.

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