Regina athlete wins funding from RBC Training Ground

While her journey is just beginning, Erica Rieder is being put on the right track to possibly achieving an Olympic dream.

The Regina product has been awarded funding and an accelerated path to the Olympics in track cycling after impressing scouts at the recent RBC Training Ground national final.

“It’s been a crazy experience. There has been so many high-performing athletes that have come (through the program),” the 26-year-old told The Green Zone. “It’s huge to have that funding.

“When I first got into cycling, I had no idea about the expenses that are associated with it – buying bike parts and track time and shoes and helmets and all these things associated with the sport.”

While she’s always had Olympic aspirations, track cycling wasn’t the sport she had envisioned.

Rieder has played hockey for most of her life and suited up for the University of Manitoba Bisons before playing professionally in Sweden with Modo Hockey.

She admits it was tough to realize hockey wasn’t the sport that would take her where she wanted to go.

“This past year in Sweden I knew that the Olympics was the ultimate dream,” Rieder said. “Growing up through hockey I always looked up to Hockey Canada and Hayley Wickenheiser and wanted to play on the national team. At some point in my hockey career, I figured out that probably wouldn’t pan out for me and I came to terms with that.”

This past year wasn’t the first time Rieder participated in the RBC Training Ground. She participated in 2018 and was invited to the finals in 2019 but elected to continue her hockey career in Sweden.

“I was invited to the final but the age bracket for training ground is 14 to 25 so I figured I had a few years to maybe come back and do it again so I didn’t go,” Rieder said.

Due to the pandemic, there wasn’t a 2020 Training Ground and in 2021 it was virtual.

But this year she went all the way with the program.

And she has a great role model to look up to when it comes to track cycling.

Kelsey Mitchell was steered into track cycling by the program and despite never participating in the sport prior to that, she won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“She was sort of a big inspiration for me to even make this transition,” Rieder said. “She came from soccer and in a couple of years she was on the podium at the Olympics.

“When we went to the final in Ottawa, a number of the current Olympians were there so that was super-cool to be able to meet them and talk to them about their whole journey through the program and then where they are now.

“She came into the program and said she hadn’t ridden or owned a bike since she was little and then she got on the track and that was it for her. I come from a family that is big into cycling. In university I didn’t have a car for the first four years of my degree so I just rode my bike everywhere. I was very comfortable with the bike. I went to Sweden and (a bike) was the one thing I really wanted to get.”

But Rieder soon found out it wasn’t exactly the same thing.

“I got on the track and I said, ‘This is not just like riding a bike.’ You get out there on the track and have a 32-degree banking on the corners and you’re riding on a wall basically. It is quite interesting,” Rieder said.

Now completely focused on track cycling, she competed at nationals in September and will compete at another one in January.

“Right now my goal is to simply make the national team. If I do that, I would probably move to Milton, Ontario and train with the national team over there and then work my way up and try to get on the team to travel and maybe go to international races,” Rieder said.