Photo Credit: Mairen Lawson

By Shane Clausing

Mairen Lawson

Grande Prairie cyclist earns bronze medal in national time trial race

Sep 15, 2021 | 5:00 AM

A Grande Prairie triathlete turned cyclist is turning some heads in the Canadian cycling community.

This past weekend, 17-year-old Mairen Lawson raced to a bronze medal finish at the 2021 Canadian Road Cycling Championships in Quebec, placing third in the Junior Individual 16-km time trial race.

The third-place finish for Lawson came as a bit of a surprise to her, as she says she didn’t begin to compete in track cycling until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.

“I was originally in triathlon before I started and I was training with a club in Grande Prairie, the Speed Revolution Youth Triathlon Club,” she said. “When COVID came around, because of the restrictions, it was pretty hard to train, so I transitioned into cycling at that point.”

Because of COVID protocols, Lawson actually didn’t participate in any cycling-specific events prior to the national event last week. The only cycling competition she had participated in prior was through triathlon races.

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“I got selected to go for Team Alberta based on numbers and training that I’ve done (prior), there weren’t any (pre) competitions for this even.”

She finished the 16-kilometre time trial with a time of 27:17, just 11 seconds off of the second-place time and a full minute off of first place time.

Lawson says her goal wasn’t to come out of it with one of the top times in the country when she decided to enter the competition.

“I was just going to get the experience,” she explained. “I wasn’t expecting to be at the top or be competitive, so it’s just an amazing feeling.”

Lawson tells EverythingGP after what was a strong performance on the course last week, she has made it one of her goals to make the Alberta cycling team for the Canada Summer Games next year.

She says she will also be participating at the junior nationals for track cycling in Milton, Ontario this November.

Lawson, who graduated from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School this past June, says she is currently focusing on training to further her cycling career and also taking a year off to decide what it is she wants to do in the future.