New Edmonton velodrome puts Olympic cycling champion Kelsey Mitchell back on track

A new velodrome in her backyard drew Olympic track cycling champion Kelsey Mitchell back to the sport.

After competing for Canada in bobsled in February's Milan Cortina Games, the 32-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alta., is back on two wheels at the new Alberta Velodrome in Edmonton.

The cycling track in the new $153-million Coronation Park Sports and Recreation Centre opened in January.

It's one of three 250-metre indoor UCI-sanctioned tracks in Canada.

The velodrome in Milton, Ont., built for the 2015 Pan American Games, is the national team's training centre.

Kelsey Mitchell cycles to gold for Canada's 24th medal of Tokyo Olympics

The Centre National De Cyclisme was completed in Bromont, Que., in 2022.

Mitchell captured women's Olympic sprint gold in Tokyo in 2021. She didn't even own a bike when she was recruited into the sport four years earlier through RBC Training Ground.

After placing eighth in Paris in 2024, Mitchell said she was mentally and physically burned out.

But she wasn't ready to abandon the life of a high-performance athlete. Mitchell gave speedskating a try, but found her leg power more transferable to pushing a bobsleigh.

She and pilot Melissa Lotholz from Barrhead, Alta., placed 13th in women's bob in Cortina, Italy.

Mitchell sought more balance and a different environment upon return to track cycling, which she says the Edmonton velodrome provides.

"I honestly don't know if I would have come back to cycling if it wasn't for this facility," Mitchell said.

"I struggled a bit finding the work-life balance. I'm an all-in kind of person, and so being out in Milton, I did nothing else except train. That obviously worked out really well, but I think it had a downfall towards the later half of my career."

Ed