Maple Ridge cyclist Maggie Coles-Lyster has been chosen the female junior athlete of the year by Sport BC for the second straight year.
Coles-Lyster was nominated by Cycling BC for her accomplishments in 2017, and executive director Erin Waugh gave the criteria used.
“First of all, she’s a phenom,” she said. “And she’s a world champion in track cycling.”
Coles-Lyster, racing as a junior, became the first Canadian rider to win a world title at the 2017 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Montichiari, Italy in August.
Waugh has a son about the same age in competitive cycling and has watched Coles-Lyster compete from the start of her career as a teen.
“She has been dominating the sport since she started riding,” said Waugh. “She was 13 and 14, competing on the road against elite women, and holding her own.”
On social media, Coles-Lyster said she is “so incredibly honoured to be the recipient of the Sport BC Junior Female Athlete of the Year award for the second year in a row!”
This year got off to a rough start for the world-class cyclist. Coles-Lyster was competing at the Six Day Copenhagen track event in February when she went down hard in the omnium. She was knocked unconscious and suffered a concussion, two fractures along her cheekbone and eye socket, a bunch of road rash and some air bubbles above her lungs.
She was in hospital for most of a week, but just six weeks later was back competing.
