SUMMERSIDE – Heather Moyse is back on track after an injury that set back her attempt at making Canada's cycling team.
The Summerside native, who captured bobsled gold in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, decided earlier this year to turn her attention to yet another new sport.
But a recent fall from the bike on the cycling track left her with a nasty burn on her right arm.
Far worse, however, was a tear in the fascia covering the quadriceps muscles in her left leg that required a month of rehab.
"Right now, it's so much better. It doesn't hurt me at all to train on the bike," Moyse said from Toronto.
"Because I took a month off for rehab and trying to recover, I haven't been lifting (weights) yet. But the cycling's going really well. It's the first two days back on the track, so we're pretty rusty."
The torn fascia, which she describes like a plastic wrap that covers the muscle, has now partially closed over, allowing Moyse to cycle pain-free.
She's been back on the bike for just over two weeks now, training in hopes of competing in a World Cup race in the near future.
The first World Cup event of the season was held last month in Astana, Kazakhstan, while the second will take place in early December in Colombia, South America.
But unlike the Canadian bobsled team, which normally goes with a steady roster of athletes for World Cup events, track cycling coaches must submit their rosters six weeks in advance of a race.
That means Moyse won't be competing in Colombia because the selection period occurred during her injury recovery.
Her goal now is to be selected to compete in a race early in the new year.
"There's a race in Beijing (China) towards the end of January...so I'm hoping at that point I may have proven myself enough to get a chance to do a race in the New Year," she said. "I have to give them something that will make them think it's worth taking a chance."
This is Moyse's third attempt to make a national sports squad after previously competing for the Canadian rugby and bobsled teams.
Still, she said it's too early to even consider making the track cycling Olympic team without first having competed in a World Cup race.
After crashing on a frozen ice track in a bobsled and falling off the bike on the sloped surface of the cycling velodrome, Moyse would now prefer to keep the wipeouts to a minimum.
"In the bobsled, it's weird, because it's kind of a sense of helplessness. With cycling...it's just you and he bike on the track," she said. "Most of the injuries that have happened over the last few weeks (in cycling), someone has crashed, but they've also taken out somebody else. You're in a position where you can injure a lot of other people as well."
sbrun@journalpioneer.com
