Lyne Bessette
Road
Lyne Bessette, a cyclist from Lac Brome, Quebec, Canada, is one of Quebec’s most well-known professional cyclists. While she started her athletic career as a runner, Bessette switched fully to cycling in 1995. In 1998 she joined the Saturn Cycling team, after taking gold in the road race at the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia. She was a member of the 2000 and 2004 Canadian Olympic teams, competing in road and ITT events. Bessette also served as pilot for para-cyclist Robbi Weldon. They won gold in the 2012 Olympic road race, and became world champions at the 2010 UCI World Para-cycling Championships in the road race, and again in 2011 at an ITT event in Denmark.
Among many career highlights, Bessette won the 1999 and 2001 Tour de l'Aude Feminin, 1999 Redlands Bicycle Classic and the Women’s Challenge in 2001. She still holds a record of four consecutive wins at the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic. In 2001, she also took first in both the Canadian National TT Championships and Canadian National Road Championships. In 1999 she took second at the Sea Otter Classic, which she bettered in 2002 with a first-place finish. Bessette had multiple World Cup podiums in road races, such as a 2nd at Flèches Wallonne, 2nd at the Montreal World Cup, and a 3rd in Cyclocross.
Her most recent highlight would be her victory at the CanadaMan Xtreme triathlon in 2017 and 2018, followed up with second place in 2019 and 2022. She still holds the course record at 12:02.00.
She is still very active and competes in adventure races, trail running events and long-distance gravel events.
