Maeve Plouffe (born 8 July 1999) is an Australian professional

racing cyclist Cycle sport is Competition, competitive physical activity using bicycles. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, and cycle speedway. Non-racing ...

. She rode in the women's team pursuit event and the women's individual pursuit event at the

2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships The 2020 UCI Track Cycling World Championships were held in Berlin, Germany from 26 February to 1 March 2020. Schedule 20 events were held: ''All times are local (UTC+1).'' Medal summary Medal table Men Women *Shaded events are no ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, Germany. She was selected on the Australian women’s track endurance squad for the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

. She was a member of the Women's pursuit team. The team consisting of

Ashlee Ankudinoff Ashlee Ankudinoff (born 20 August 1990) is an Australian professional Cycle sport, racing cyclist. Biography Ankudinoff was born in Sydney, New South Wales. She began competitive cycling at the age of fifteen on the road. Ankudinoff was a memb ...

Georgia Baker Georgia Baker (born 21 September 1994) is an Australian professional racing cyclist. She rode in the women's team pursuit at the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. Cycling career After taking a break from road racing in 2016 with the H ...

Annette Edmondson Annette Edmondson (born 12 December 1991) is an Australian former Cycle sport, cyclist who competed on the track with Cycling Australia's High Performance Unit (HPU). She also competed on the road for the team between 2015 and 2018. Her greate ...

Alexandra Manly Alexandra Manly (born 28 February 1996) is an Australian professional racing cyclist, who joined the Women's WorldTour team in 2022. She also rode for between 2015 and 2019. Manly qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. She was a member of th ...

, Maeve Plouffe finished fifth.

Early cycling career

Plouffe was introduced to

track cycling Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles. History Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its infancy, it wa ...

by a

South Australian Sports Institute Sport plays an important role in the business, community, social and cultural life in South Australia. Sport as entertainment plays an important role with South Australia having the second highest rate of event attendance of all states and terri ...

talent identification program from a background of swimming and surf life saving. She exhibited an early aptitude for the road time trial, winning the event as an U17 in her first year competing at the Australian Junior Road National Championships and again as an U19 in the

Oceania Road Cycling Championships The Oceania Road Championships are a series of road cycling races held annually to determine the Oceanian champion in each event. The event has been held since 1995 and consists of an elite and under-23 men's and an elite women's road race and ...

. Maeve made her international debut in the 2017 UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships.

Elite career

Plouffe made her international elite debut at nineteen years of age in the opening round of the

2018–19 UCI Track Cycling World Cup The 2018–19 UCI Track Cycling World Cup (also known as the Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup for sponsorship reasons) was a multi-race tournament over a track cycling season. It was the 27th series of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup organised b ...

women's

points race A points race is a mass start track cycling event involving large numbers of riders simultaneously on track. It was an Olympic event for men between 1984–2008 and for women 1996–2008. Starting in 2012, the points race is one of the omnium even ...

Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines () is a new town and an agglomeration community in the French department of Yvelines. It is one of the original five villes nouvelles (new towns) of Paris and was named after the Saint Quentin Pond, which was chosen to ...

, France. She represented Australia again at the

UCI Track Cycling World Cup The UCI Track Cycling World Cup (formerly known as the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics) is a multi race tournament held over a track cycling season - usually between October and February. Each series is divided into several rounds, each held i ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, before returning to Australia to win three elite

Australian Championship The National Second Division (NSD) – also referred to under the working title The Championship – is a proposed Australian national second-tier men's, soccer league, to be run by Football Australia and the Association of Australian Football Cl ...

titles in the

individual pursuit The individual pursuit is a track cycling event where two cyclists begin the race from a stationary position on opposite sides of the track. It is held at over for men and for women. The riders start at the same time and set off to complete the ...

team pursuit The team pursuit is a track cycling event similar to the individual pursuit, except that two teams, each of up to four riders, compete, starting on opposite sides of the velodrome. Race format Both men's and women's events are competed over ...

and

madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

. In the 2020 season Maeve Plouffe became Oceania champion in the

scratch race A scratch race is a track cycling race in which all riders start together and the objective is simply to be first over the finish line after a certain number of laps. UCI regulations specify that a scratch race should be held over 15 km for ...

and won two silver and two bronze medals. Only three months prior to the championships, she underwent an operation on her wrist as a result of a fall in a street race in Belgium. In the

2019–20 UCI Track Cycling World Cup The 2019–20 UCI Track Cycling World Cup (also known as the Tissot UCI Track Cycling World Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a multi-race tournament over a track cycling season. It is the 28th series of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup organised by t ...

season, Maeve’s team won a silver medal and set a new Australian record in the women’s

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, before winning a gold medal in the women's

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Her performances gained her selection for the

UCI Track World Championships The UCI Track Cycling World Championships are the set of world championship events for the various disciplines and distances in track cycling. They are regulated by the Union Cycliste Internationale. Before 1900, they were administered by the UCI ...

, where she placed fifth in the women’s

and tenth in the

improving her personal best time by five seconds, clocking 3 minutes 26.742 seconds. At the

2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England bet ...

, Plouffe won the gold medal in the women's team pursuit event alongside

Sophie Edwards Sophie Edwards (born 25 February 2000) is an Australian track and road cyclist. Edwards set a new Australian record in the individual pursuit at the Junior Track World Championships in 2018. Edwards was a gold medalist at the 2022 Commonwealth G ...

Chloe Moran Chloe Moran (born 16 November 1998) is an Australian track cyclist. Moran is a Junior World Medallist, multiple National & Oceania Champion. She was a gold medalist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially ...

and

, setting a games record time of 4:14.06.

Personal life

In 2020, Plouffe was studying a double degree in law and science, with double majors in marine biology and ecology at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Plouffe, Maeve 1999 births Living people Australian female cyclists Place of birth missing (living people) Cyclists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic cyclists for Australia 20th-century Australian women 21st-century Australian women Cyclists at the 2022 Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games gold medallists for Australia Commonwealth Games silver medallists for Australia Commonwealth Games medallists in cycling Medallists at the 2022 Commonwealth Games