The final day of the junior and elite portion of the 2019 USA Cycling Junior, Elite, & Para-cycling Track National Championships was on Sunday. National champions would be named in the 1,000-meter time trial, 500-meter time trial, points race and scratch race. The day saw another national record fall, this time to Sophia Shuhay (New Tripoli, Pa.; Star Track Racing) for the Junior 17-18 Women’s 500-meter time trial with her time of 36.011 seconds in the qualifiers.
Elite Time Trial
Earning her fourth consecutive national title in the Elite Women’s 500-meter Time Trial, Mandy Marquardt (Allentown, Pa.; Team Novo Nordisk), would clock a 34.836 in qualifying, just eight-tenths of second off of her current national record, which was set in Aguascalientes, Mexico in 2016. Aguascalientes is arguably one of the fastest tracks in the world. Dawn Orwick (Westminster, Colo.; Hammer Racing p/b Thorne) would place second with her time of 36.759. Keely Kortman (Tustin, Calif.; Performance Cycle Coaching) who was seeded in second after qualifying would take home bronze.
John Croom (Colorado Springs, Colo.; Texas Roadhouse Cycling Team), would also defend
his third year as the 1,000-meter time trial champion.
Talking about winning the event after being seeded second after qualifying Croom said, “It feels great. Especially after the qualifier, which was a bit of a rocky start. But I was able to pull it together there at the end.”
Croom would stop the clock at 1:03.569 during his final ride, which was the fastest ride of the day. Eric Young (Boulder, Colo.; Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling), the current national record holder in this event, would take home silver, missing the top step of the podium by just two-hundredths of a second. Andrew Carlberg (Kirkland, Wash.; Broadmark Capital), the top seeded rider after qualifying would round out the podium.
Elite Points Race
The Elite riders concluded their event with points races. Jennifer Valente (San Diego; Sho-Air Twenty20) would once again prove herself the most dominant woman rider at this event by winning the Elite Women’s Points Race. Valente would lap the field twice and win five of eight points sprints.
“I think you try to race every race as hard as you can, and the results are the results at the end of the day. I think I can be proud of some of the decisions I made in the race, and looking at those as takeaways into the rest of the season”, said Valente about her multiple wins this week.
Kate Wilson (Los Angeles; iCademy) would put in a strong performance, pulling away from the field, and staying away for more than 15 of the 80 laps in the race. Silver medalist in the madison, Christina Birch (Los Angles; Foundation for American Track Cycling Ambassador), would take home the bronze.
Coming off his madison win on Saturday night, Adrian Hegyvary (Ashville, N.C.; Texas Roadhouse Cycling Team) would earn his first individual gold medal at a track national championship.
“To be honest, we didn’t really think about the individual races. The madison’s really big for us, because it’s an Olympic event, and that’s really what’s on the table right now for everybody”, said Hegyvary about how he and madison partner Daniel Holloway (Boulder, Colo.; Texas Roadhouse Cycling Team) went from the madison to the points race. “We really just focused on that, and once that was done, it was all about who could get the best night’s sleep going into Sunday. I felt pretty good and decided to head out early and see where the chip lay after. It seemed to pay off.”
Holloway would take second to Hegyvary, earning 68 points during the race. Gavin Hoover (Redondo Beach, Calif.; Elevate-KHS Pro Cycling), winner of Friday’s International Omnium, would round out the podium.
Junior Time Trial
On top of her national record, Shuhay would earn the national title for the Junior Women’s 500-meter Time Trial. The second step of the podium would go to Kayla Hankins (Scottsdale, Ariz.; LUX Cycling Team) with her finals time of 37.270. Edge Cycling’s Mia Deye (Geigerstown, Pa.) would take the bronze.
Jean Luc Contant-Gallitello (Coconut Beach, Fla.) would speed onto the top step of the Junior Men’s 1,000-meter Time Trial podium with a finals time of 1:07.765. Last year’s gold medalist in event, Ethan Swaidner (Colorado Springs, Colo.; Front Rangers Junior Cycling) would miss the gold by just two-hundredths of a second. To complete the podium, Benjamin Raknes (Sammamish, Wash.; Jerry Baker Juniors) would clock a 1:09.588.
Para-cycling
10 athletes earned national titles on the first day of competition at the 2019 USA Cycling Para-cycling Track National Championships. Joe Berenyi, Sam Bosco and Chris Murphy each claimed two titles at the VELO Sports Center in Carson, California, in their respective time trial and scratch races. Competition continues on Monday, July 8, with pursuit events. You can read more about the para events here.
Monday’s schedule features para-cycling individual pursuits and the exciting mixed team sprint.
The event will be live streamed during the evening sessions beginning Thursday July 4 through Sunday July 7 on USA Cycling’s YouTube channel.
You can follow the action on USA Cycling’s @usacyclinglive Twitter account as well as the @usacycling Instagram account, and follow along with others posts by using the hashtag #TrackNats.
