{"id":35385,"date":"2015-09-22T08:57:32","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T12:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=35385"},"modified":"2015-09-28T10:20:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-28T14:20:26","slug":"brock-student-to-represent-canada-at-world-cycling-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2015\/09\/brock-student-to-represent-canada-at-world-cycling-championships\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock student to represent Canada at World Cycling Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sitting at an outdoor table typing away on his laptop, third-year Brock University student Benjamin Perry looks like any other student on campus. There\u2019s little to indicate the St. Catharines man is one of Canada\u2019s top prospects in road cycling.<\/span><\/p>\n

At 21 years old, Perry has attained a level of success on two wheels most riders only dream of. He\u2019s a paid professional cyclist racing on the Canadian Silber Pro Cycling Team, and on Friday, Sept. 25, he\u2019ll represent his country at the 2015 World Road Cycling Championships being held in Richmond, Virginia.<\/p>\n

Perry is one of three riders on Canada\u2019s squad in the 162-kilometre Under-23 men\u2019s race, where he\u2019s aiming for a top five finish. It\u2019s a lofty, but attainable goal that would be a huge step forward for Canada\u2019s cycling program.<\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, Perry\u2019s Silber squad raced against some of the world\u2019s biggest professional cycling teams at the Tour of Alberta. Winning the race against Tour de France-level teams was never a realistic possibility for the second-tier Silber team, but that didn\u2019t stop Perry from keeping things interesting.<\/p>\n

\"Benjamin<\/a>

Brock Unviersity student Benjamin Perry won the King of the Mountains title at the 2015 Tour of Alberta.<\/p><\/div>\n

He ended up winning the six-day race\u2019s climbing competition \u2013 beating out some of the world\u2019s top riders along the way. It immediately put him on the radar of the biggest teams around, some of which contacted him afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still really young in terms of cycling, so it\u2019s a good stepping stone to be in contact with these teams now. I have my foot in the door,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But while Perry may be young for a cyclist, he also knows no cycling career can last forever. It\u2019s why he enrolled in Brock\u2019s Goodman School of Business Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program after taking a year off after high school to focus on racing in Europe.<\/p>\n

With cycling, I could break my leg today and be done. But if I get a business degree, there are a wide range of opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perry\u2019s ultimate goal is to represent Canada at the Olympics or to end up racing with a top-level professional team that would send him to the Tour de France, but the degree will give him a career option whenever it\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith cycling, I could break my leg today and be done. But if I get a business degree, there are a wide range of opportunities,\u201d he said. \u201cI could still work in cycling if I choose with a business degree, so that\u2019s where I think it\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry balances his training and racing schedule with both online and on-campus classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I keep going at this pace, by the time I\u2019m done school I\u2019ll either know I can make it as a cyclist, or I\u2019ll choose to use my business degree,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s sustainable right now. I make enough money to live and I do enough school that it\u2019ll take me about six years to do a four-year degree. I think it\u2019s well-rounded to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry left for Virginia Tuesday, and races at 12:45 p.m. Friday. Live video of the race will be available at www.uci.ch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Benjamin<\/a>

Perry at the 2015 Tour of Alberta.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sitting at an outdoor table typing away on his laptop, third-year Brock University student Benjamin Perry looks like any other student on campus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":35386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,58],"tags":[3373,3372,3244,594,89],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35385"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35396,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35385\/revisions\/35396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}