Mountain

South African Greg Minnaar (Santa Cruz Syndicate) and American Melissa Buhl (KHS) won the second round of the 2008 Jeep 48Straight mountain bike series, held Saturday at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah. The two took wins under dark skies and rain, which muddied the racecourse. Formerly known as the Jeep King of the Mountain Series, the newly titled 48Straight events pit the world’s premier gravity mountain bike racers in a dual slalom/mountain cross hybrid event. Riders race each other twice, with the rider with the fastest combined time advancing to the next round.

GT Bicycles will not hire back Jill Kintner, the Olympic bronze medalist in BMX, for 2009. Kintner, 26, signed with the Madison, Wisconsin-based bicycle manufacturer at the onset of the 2006 season to race Four cross. During her three years with GT, the Seattle native won two national and two world championships titles as well as the 2006 World Cup overall in that discipline. In 2007 Kintner turned her focus toward BMX racing in preparation for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. In August Kintner claimed Bronze in Beijing.

Greg Minnaar (Santa Cruz Syndicate) has won the 2008 the UCI downhill mountain bike World Cup. The South African finished fifth at the World Cup finals in Schladming, Austria, on September 13 to inch his way by two-time defending champ Sam Hill (Monster-Ironhorse) 1354 points to 1293.

Feedback Sports racer Lisa Hudson used a steady approach to win the King of the Rockies Finale to the Winter Park mountain bike series, and in the process she took the season-long title. Her win was her first of the season in the series, but her consistency through the summer and her breakout performance on the toughest course of the year made the title fitting.

This weekend's Mountain's Edge Cactus Cup in Las Vegas will feature several big names from the original 1990s version of Cactus Cup, as well as some top current riders, including 2000 Olympic medalist and current world champion Christoph Sauser. Riders returning from the Cactus Cup hey day include Mountain Bike Hall of Famer Tinker Juarez. “The Cactus Cup is one of those events that brings many facets and faces in the sport together,” said Juarez. “I’m looking forward to racing and to reconnecting with old friends from around the world,” he says.

Cyclocross star Jonathan Page (Planet Bike) and Lea Davison (Trek-Volkswagen) escaped with overall wins at Wisconsin’s Chequamegon 40 on Saturday. The event is the highlight of the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival, a weekend of mountain bike races and events in and around Cable, Wisconsin. The famed race once again began with a mass start of 1700 participants in downtown Hayward, Wisconsin, before following the American Birkebeiner ski trail to Cable.

U.S. mountain bikers will compete in new categories at USA Cycling events for 2009. The traditional categories such as Sport, Expert, Semi Pro and Pro will be replaced by license categories 1, 2, 3, and Pro — similar to that found at USA Cycling road events. The modification to the existing structure comes after analysis and dialogue by the national governing body and the National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) Board of Trustees.

One month after their head-to-head battle at the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race, Lance Armstrong and Dave Wiens will meet again. Both men are part of three-person squads for Sunday’s 12 Hours of Snowmass mountain bike race in Snowmass, Colorado. Earlier this week the seven-time Tour champ announced his plans to participate in the 12-hour race, which benefits the Aspen Youth Center and Extreme Sports Camps charities. Armstrong will race alongside Colorodans Len Zanni and Max Taam.

Just days since announcing his plans to return to the European road peloton, Lance Armstrong will compete in the inaugural 12 Hours of Snowmass cross-country mountain bike race on Sunday, September 14. Nat Ross, race director for the event, confirmed Armstrong’s participation, saying the seven-time Tour winner will race as part of a three-man team at the event.

Ralph Naef (Multivan Merida) and Irina Kalentieva (Topeak Ergon Racing Team) won their respective races at the penultimate round of the UCI mountain bike World Cup over the weekend. The competition, held August 29-31 at a new venue in Canberra, Australia, provided a preview of the 2009 UCI world championships, to be held Down Under next August.

It started at 10,700 feet and climbed up to timberline, and around every corner the Winter Park Mountain Bike Series' new mountain top circuit course threw a new challenge at the racers. The altitude made the climbing difficult, but the technical descents were what made the race exciting. The race was pushed back one week due to an August snowstorm that dumped nearly six inches on the course. [nid:82395] Peter Stetina of Tokyo Joe’s took the lead early and held off teammate Braden Kappius to win the race in a time of 1:27:29 over the 17.7 mile pro course.

Both Canada and the United States recorded their worst ever finishes in men’s mountain biking in Laoshan, as Geoff Kabush’s 20th place finish — 7:56 down on Absalon — marked the top North American result. Seamus McGrath and Todd Wells were pulled from the race with three laps remaining, and officials yanked Adam Craig off the course with one lap to go. McGrath and Wells finished in 44th and 43rd place, with Craig in 29th. In 1996 Canadian Warren Sallenback was the top North American finisher in 13th place, and in 2000 and 2004 Kabush and McGrath both placed ninth, respectively.

Antipass Kwari is under no illusions about his chances of medal glory ahead of this Saturday's Olympic mountain bike gold race. But his coach Wayne Davidson is getting excited about the opportunity Kwari, the first Zimbabwean to compete in Olympic mountain biking, has to showcase the sport to Africa. "The importance of this cannot be put into words. It is absolutely monstrous for us," said Davidson. "Cycling is very difficult to develop in Africa. With one soccer ball you can have 22 players. To develop a cyclist you need one bicycle. It's beyond the means of most people.

The women's Olympic mountain bike race has been postponed until Saturday because of rain damage to the course, the UCI confirmed on Thursday. The decision follows the postponement of the sem-final rounds of BMX competition earlier in the day. The women's mountain bike race, held on a 4.5km loop to be raced for approximately 1 hour 40 minutes, was due to be held on Friday. [nid:82158]It means that both the women's and men's Olympic races will be held on Saturday, with a scheduled start of 10:00 a.m. for women and 3:00 p.m. for the men.

A year ago, the world’s elite mountain bikers poured into Beijing for a test event on the Olympic course and the results were not encouraging. Riders were gagging on the oppressive heat and thick smog. Some were literally vomiting from the double-whammy sucker punch of heat and pollution. A fast, wide-open course provided few challenges and many were wondering if the Chinese had blown it. Flash-forward a year and things are very different ahead of Friday’s and Saturday’s races on the Laoshan mountain bike course.

The Jill Kintner that will compete in Wednesday’s Olympic BMX finals is not the same woman who took her third world title in four-cross mountain biking just 11 months ago. Sure, she still boasts the same chatty personality, curly ponytail and toothy grin — those qualities aren’t going anywhere. But the Kintner of today is a bigger, badder, stronger version of her former self. Bulging triceps flex from under her shirtsleeves, thick hamstrings and quads fill out her jeans. She’s ripped.

Bicycle Moto Cross — the sport most people know simply as BMX — made its Olympic debut on Wednesday, August 20, as the world’s best riders competed in time-trial seeding and preliminary rounds. Located adjacent to the velodrome and mountain bike course, the Laoshan BMX complex was packed with a full house of riders, media and spectators eager to see the Olympics’ high-flying, crash-filled event. “This is the biggest thing I’ll ever do,” said American Mike Day. “I’ve dreamt of it. The whole experience is overwhelming.”

TransRockies VII kicked off in true mountain fashion Sunday with temperamental weather and spectacular scenery as riders wound their way from host start community Panorama Mountain Village down to the historic K2 ranch on the shores of Lake Windermere. Wind, rain sleet and snow – in addition to spots of blue sky – introduced riders early in the week to classic TransRockies conditions. A dispatch from Checkpoint #1 noted the mid-day drop in temperature brought with it the ability to see one’s breath.

Lance Armstrong on Wednesday downplayed his chances of winning the Leadville 100 mountain bike race this weekend, saying a top-five or "on a good day, top-three" finish is more likely. "I'm not in it to win it, as they say," Armstrong told reporters in a conference call from Aspen, Colorado, where he has been vacationing and training for the 100-mile race, which starts in the considerably-less-posh nearby community of Leadville.

At the Leadville 100 last year, when Floyd Landis attacked on an early climb, then-four-time defending Leadville champ Dave Wiens matched the acceleration pedal stroke for pedal stroke. "For about 8 seconds," Wiens said with a laugh this week. "I realized I could stay with Floyd, but I'd never finish the race if I did." This Saturday morning when Wiens lines up beside Lance Armstrong in downtown Leadville, Colorado, for the 6:30 a.m. start, he has a similar strategy: let the Tour star ride his own race.

Lance Armstrong is preparing diligently for the Leadville 100 mountain bike race in Colorado, training in nearby Aspen to acclimatize to the altitude. As of Monday, Armstrong had ridden parts of the 100-mile Leadville course two or three times and was doing daily road and offroad rides, said Trek spokesman Ben Coates. "Lance is in Aspen with a couple of guys, one of them is a trainer that he is working with. He looks super fit when I saw him the other day, and he seems to be taking the race very seriously," Coates said.

The rain, which had held off for the World Cup Downhill at Bromont, Quebec, on Saturday, returned for the start of the Four-Cross in the evening. Despite the soggy track, there was some extremely exciting racing, with multiple come-from-behind rides. World Cup leaders Anneke Beerten (MS-Intense) and Rafael Alvarez de Lara Lucas (Specialized) extended their leads in the women's and men's series with convincing wins.

One week after Mont St. Anne, the World Cup circus moved a couple of hours west to Bromont for the next round of racing. This is round seven for the cross-country and round five for the gravity events of Four-Cross and Downhill. As was the case at Mont St. Anne, there has been lots of rain all week, so the ground is soaked through. Sections of the Downhill and Four-Cross courses had to be closed to training and the cross-country had one section removed, all due to the mud. Cross-country

One hundred and seventy-five racers representing 15 nations showed up in Canmore, Alberta, Canada, to compete in the 24 Hours of Adrenalin Solo World Championships July 26-27. But the big story was actually a piece of mud. At 10:30 p.m., as defending champion Rebecca Rusch of Ketchum, Idaho, was building an insurmountable lead in the women’s race, so was 47-year-old mountain-bike icon Tinker Juarez, also the 2007 champ.

The promoter of the Leadville 100, a 100-mile mountain bike race in Colorado, told a local newspaper that Lance Armstrong has registered for his race and is training nearby for the August 9 event. "It's huge for the race, of course, but even more grand and more meaningful to our community, because now the national and the international spotlight will be on Leadville," promoter Ken Chlouber told the Summit Daily.

Geritt Beytagh thought he had the legs and lungs to win the 2008 USA Cycling national downhill championships after his qualifying run. He qualified first despite breaking his chain with one-third of the punishing course remaining. So when the 24-year-old crossed the line in the finals, looked up and saw he’d evicted ’05 champ Cody Warren from the hot seat by three seconds, Beytagh confirmed his suspicions: He’s stronger and faster than ever. Why?

Denmark's cross-country mountain bike champion Peter Riis Andersen, who was to compete in the Beijing Olympics, has failed a drugs test, the Danish sporting federation DIF said on Monday. Andersen, 28, one of 84 Danish athletes selected to take part in the Games, tested positive for the banned blood booster EPO (erythroipoietin). The DIF have expelled him from the Olympic squad. Andersen, who rides for the German Team ALB-GOLD, won the Danish championships on July 20 and had been hoping for a top 10 finish in the Olympics, which open on August 8.

With a deafening crowd of Quebecers cheering and waving plastic hand clappers in her honor, Marie-Héléne Prémont stepped off her Rocky Mountain hardtail and raised the rig in victory at Mont-Ste-Anne resort. The 31-year-old, who hails from nearby Chateau-Richter, had just taken her third World Cup title at Mont-Ste-Anne in four years.[nid:81032] “It is amazing, always an amazing feeling to win here,” Prémont said, wiping mud from her face.

Another July, another US National Championships coinciding with with the best race ever. That being Mount Snow, Vermont.

Geoff Kabush (Maxxis) and Marie-Hélène Prémont both defended their Canadian national cross-country titles from 2007 during this year’s championships, run June 19 at Mont-Ste-Anne, Québec. Both riders won by slim margins, with Derek Zandstra (3 Rock Racing) and Catherine Pendrel (Luna) taking the runner-up spots. The victory marked the fifth career title for Kabush and the sixth for Prémont. Both will don their national colors at Mont-Ste-Anne’s cross-country World Cup race on July 27.

With just a handful of weeks to go until the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the world's top cross-country mountain bikers face two World Cup rounds to get their legs race ready. This weekend’s World Cup race, held at Mont-Ste-Anne resort just outside of Quebec City, is the first test, with Bromont, Quebec, hosting a round on August 2-3. But who, exactly, will show up for the Canadian races?

Super Downhill racing action burst into the Winter Park Mountain Bike Series in full force on Sunday, with 170 racers ready to try out the inaugural event.

The valley point-to-point course is one of the local’s favorites in the Winter Park Mountain Bike Series, but no one liked it as much as Dellys Starr (Dales Pale Ale/Spot Brand) who blasted the competition with a winning time of 1:25:19 on the 19-mile track in the third race of the series. Her time was just two seconds off the fastest time set by a female rider on the course, but she had the fastest pace as organizers had to re-route the course.

Mountain biker Chris Jongewaard failed in his attempt to join Australia's team for next month's Beijing Olympics when he was turned down for selection by the Australian Olympic Committee here Saturday. Jongewaard is facing hit and run and drink-driving offenses relating to a road accident last year which left fellow cyclist Matthew Rex with severe head injuries. He has pleaded not guilty and is due to face court again later this year.

The 2008 USA Cycling national mountain bike championships opened on Thursday, July 17, with a host of youngsters battling for much-coveted cross-country titles. First to grab a stars and stripes jersey was Tad Elliott, who took his first national title in the men’s U23 race. “I’ve never been a national champion in anything before, so this is huge for me,” said Elliott, an accomplished nordic ski racer from Durango, Colorado. “I was really nervous, so I was just trying to keep it smooth.”

All eyes will be on the skies above Mount Snow resort this week, as the U.S.’s best professional and amateur off-road racers gear up for the 2008 USA Cycling national mountain bike championships. The typically damp ski hill in Vermont has seen weeks of sunshine and unusually hot temperatures in the lead up to the July 16-20 racing weekend. And should those skies remain clear, Mount Snow’s famed rooty singletrack should maintain its current fast, dusty state.

In just his first attempt at California’s Downieville Classic, Colorado’s Ross Schnell marched into the lion’s den of NorCal’s fiercest all-around mountain bikers and came out without a scratch. He also came out toting the trophy for race’s self-coined All Mountain world championships, two new course records and some valuable bragging rights.

Australian mountain biker Chris Jongewaard has won his appeal against Cycling Australia for omitting him from the 2008 Olympic squad. The Cycling Australia High Performance Management Committee (HPMC) has decided to allow the 29-year-old to represent his country at the August 8-24 Olympics in Beijing.

The 2008 Mountain States Cup headed to Snowmass, Colorado, for the “Blast the Mass” racing weekend, the fifth event of the Colorado-based racing series. With the National Mountain Bike Series not hosting an stop at Snowmass this year, the Blast the Mass race marked the largest off-road racing event to be held at the Colorado venue this season.

With a strong headwind on one of two climbs, tactics akin to road racing played a role in both the men’s and women’s pro short track races.

California’s Downieville Classic, which runs July 12-13, has earned a reputation for crowning North America’s best all-around mountain bike racer. The two-day stage race, titled the “All Mountain World Championships,” includes a lung-busting cross-country to challenge a rider’s fitness, as well as a painfully long enduro downhill — one of the toughest skills tests in the country. “Our courses are the opposite of a NORBA race,” said race director Greg Williams. “You aren’t going to win this on a road bike. You better have a lot of travel and some thick tires.”

Windham Mountain, located in New York’s Catskill Mountains, will host the fifth round of the 2008 National Moutntain Bike Series this weekend, July 12-13. The ski resort, located roughly two hours from New York City and four from Boston, is a brand-new venue for the long-running series. Dubbed the “East Coast Nationals,” the race falls one week ahead before the 2008 USA Cycling national mountain bike championships, held July 16-30 in nearby Mount Snow, Vermont.

Jesse Lalonde (Gary Fisher 29er/BKB/T6) and Abigail Strigel (Polska/Fond du Lac Cyclery) won the Chippewa Valley Firecracker on Sunday. The race at Eau Claire’s Lowes Creek Park was the sixth event of the Wisconsin Off Road Series. Lalonde held off his teammate and brother Marko Lalonde to take the Elite Men's win. The brothers, each on singlespeeds, were followed by Mike Phillips (Adventure 212 / Specialized).

Belgium’s Roel Paulissen and Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå of Norway have won the 2008 UCI marathon mountain biking world championships, in Villabassa, Italy on Saturday. The 119 km course wound a long lap through the Südtirol Dolomiti area of northern Italy.

The Firecracker 50 cross-country mountain bike race will rumble through the streets of Breckenridge, Colorado, Friday as the nation’s best battle for the U.S. national marathon title. The grueling 50-mile race, known for its 10,800 feet of total elevation gain, kicks off at 11 a.m. sharp with a parade through the heart of the famed ski town.

Kelly Magelky (Trek-Volkwagen) and Jennifer Gersbach (Dale’s Pale Ale-Spot Bikes) won the second event of the Winter Park Mountain Bike Series on Sunday. Magelky took the early lead in the 16.1-mile Cross Country Super Loop, then withstood a late charge from Braden Kappius (Tokyo Joe’s) to win in 1 hour, 19 minutes, 45 seconds. Kappius settled for second in 1:19:46, with Michael Mathers (Rocky Mountain Racing), winner of the June 14 Hill Climb Kickoff, finishing third in 1:21:51.

Todd Wells is heading to China. With his impressive World Cup results this year, Wells grabbed the first of the United States’ two men’s spots for the Beijing Olympics. For the second-straight Games, the Durango, Colorado, resident is donning the stars and stripes to represent his country on cross-country mountain bike racing’s biggest stage.

With the Olympic team selections mostly settled (although not official) following last week's world championships in Italy, the North American mountain bike jet set is back in Utah this weekend for some high-altitude racing at Deer Valley Resort in Park City. The Deer Valley National presented by Subaru/Gary Fisher is the fourth round of the National Mountain Bike Series, and includes downhill, cross-country, dual slalom, short track and Super D events.

Gould returns

The Cactus Cup, one of the most popular early season mountain bikes events when it was held in the Scottsdale, Arizona, area in the 1990s, is returning, this time in the fall in Las Vegas. The Mountain’s Edge 2008 Cactus Cup is scheduled for September 19–21. The event comes just before the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas, which begins with its Dirt Demo on Sept. 22. The event includes a three-day pro and semi-pro stage race and single day races for other categories. The races are being held at Mountain's Edge, a planned community in Southwest Las Vegas.

France's reigning Olympic mountain bike champion Julien Absalon has admitted that losing his world title has relieved him of some of the pressure ahead of this summer's Olympics. Absalon, the world cross-country champion a remarkable four years in a row (2004-2007), failed to finish the men's world championship race Sunday in Italy won by Christoph Sauser of Switzerland.

Christoph Sauser finally has his rainbow stripes. After four years of riding in the shadow of Frenchman Julien Absalon, Sauser took an emotional cross-country win at Val di Sole, Italy. The rail-thin Swiss star crushed the men’s field, soloing to a 2:54 margin of victory over compatriot Florian Vogel. Ralph Naf’s third-place ride capped of a day of Swiss dominance. For Sauser, the win dispatched a weight that had been on his back for 14 years. [nid:78805]

“God Save the Queen” received plenty of airtime on Saturday at the 2008 UCI world mountain-bike championships in Val di Sole, Italy, as British riders took three of the four downhill races. Brother-sister duo Gee and Rachel Atherton (Animal-Commençal) dethroned the once teammates Sam Hill (Monster-Ironhorse) and Sabrina Jonnier (Maxxis) to take the elite crowns. Youngster Josh Bryceland (Monster-Ironhorse) also took the junior men’s title.

Exhausted, sunburned but smiling in her new rainbow jersey — that’s how Melissa Buhl spent her Saturday evening. The Arizona native had a jam-packed schedule on the sun-baked penultimate day of the 2008 UCI world mountain bike championships in Val di Sole, Italy. First Buhl tackled the pro women’s downhill, speeding down the steep 1.40-mile track with the 10th fastest time of the day.

Exhausted, sunburned but smiling in her new rainbow jersey — that’s how Melissa Buhl spent her Saturday evening. The Arizona native had a jam-packed schedule on the sun-baked penultimate day of the 2008 UCI world mountain-bike championships in Val di Sole, Italy. First Buhl tackled the pro women’s downhill, speeding down the steep 1.40-mile track with the 10th fastest time of the day.

Less than five years since he last took the line as an elite bike racer, Marc Gullickson faces a new cycling challenge. As USA Cycling’s newly hired mountain-bike coordinator, “Gully” is charged with helping select the United States’ four-person cross-country team for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

The world’s best mountain bike riders are heading to Greg Minnaar’s backyard for 2009. The UCI World Cup will host its opening round of 2009 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, hometown of Minnaar, the 2003 world downhill champ. It’s the first time since 1998 that South Africa has hosted a World Cup round. The April 11-12, 2009, Pietermaritzburg World Cup features the big three of mountain bike racing — cross-country, downhill and four cross.

The winner of Saturday’s downhill world championship race might not even have to turn one pedal stroke to victory. That’s because the root-covered, rock strewn course in Val di Sole, Italy, boasts such a constantly steep grade that riders will focus more on controlling their speed than propelling their rigs.

The final podium of the 2008 world junior cross-country championship looked eerily similar to that from ’08 cyclocross worlds, held in January in Treviso, Italy. Only this time it was Slovakia’s Peter Sagan on the top rung, with Frenchman Arnaud Jouffroy in second — a flip-flop from the teenagers' positions on the ’cross worlds podium. Reigning world mountain-bike junior champ Matthias Rupp, third back at ’cross words, was third again at the mountain bike worlds.

“Hey, man, let me call you back, I’m working at the shop.” This may not be the response you’d expect from someone who will be representing the United States at the world championships. But much of Tim Allen’s racing trajectory has skirted the norm.

The world’s best cross-country riders must find their fast early this year, as the June 17-22 UCI world mountain bike championships, held in Val di Sole, Italy, fall nearly three months ahead of its traditional September date. August’s Beijing Olympics — fat tire racing’ most important event of the year — is to blame for the schedule change. With medal contenders eyeing Beijing, the new date for worlds has potential to shakeup the traditional pecking order in the cross-country events.

Mike Day, of San Clemente, California, won the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Cycling (BMX) on Saturday and will earn the second automatic men's nomination to the squad that will represent the United States later this summer in Beijing.

Eight riders will compete in this weekend’s USA Cycling BMX Olympic Trials event, on Saturday at the United States Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California. With the overall winner of the event earning an automatic nomination to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team, the competitors include: Tyler Brown (San Clemente, Calif.), Danny Calaug (Chino, Calif.), Steven Cisar (Altadena, Calif.), Mike Day (Santa Clarita, Calif.), Kristopher Fox (Phelan, Calif.), Bubba Harris (Goodyear, Ariz.), David Herman (Wheat Ridge, Colo.) and Donny Robinson (Napa, Calif.).

In 2007 the inaugural BC Bike Race served up seven days of technical singletrack, breathtaking scenery and predictable front-of-the-race action. Trek-Volkswagen’s duo of Chris Eatough and Jeff Schalk won every single stage en route to a 43-minute overall victory. That won’t be the case in 2008.

The sun continued to smile on Fort William on Sunday for the final day of World Cup competition —the crowd favorite, downhill. A pair of riders long absent from the winner’s circle responded to the roars, whistles and horns of the fans lining the course from top to bottom. Tracy Moseley (Kona) took her first win since 2006, while Greg Minnaar (Santa Cruz Syndicate) his first since 2005. The day started misty and damp for qualifying, but strong winds blew the mist and clouds away, and as the day progressed the conditions just got better and better.

Proving his form on the mountain bike is nearing its peak, Ryan Trebon (Kona) obliterated a field of the Rocky Mountain region’s best talent to win the Teva Mountain Games cross-country race, on Sunday in Vail, Colorado. Trebon, the 2006 U.S. cyclocross national champ, attacked on the opening climb of the 26.4-mile race, and held his solo advantage to the end. His seven-minute victory over defending champion “Jungle” Jay Henry (Tokyo Joe’s) earned the lanky Kona rider a fat $3000 paycheck.

USA Cycling on Friday announced the 37 remaining athletes nominated to represent the United States at the 2008 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships July 15-22 in Val di Sole, Italy. With only a little more than two months remaining until the Olympic Games in Beijing, American cross country athletes will square off against fellow hopefuls from across the globe in the only Olympic discipline of off-road cycling. Six men and seven women have been nominated to the elite cross country squad.

The mountain bike World Cup has moved to Fort William, Scotland, for round five of the cross-country and round three of the gravity events this weekend. The actions gets under way Friday evening with the 4-cross, followed by the cross-country on Saturday and concluding with the downhill on Sunday. Probably the most talked about aspect of this year's Fort Bill event in its seventh consecutive year is the weather, which is dry and sunny. It is so dry, in fact, that the riders are raising dust on the downhill, something that has never happened before.

American BMX riders Jill Kintner and Kyle Bennett have earned two coveted tickets to Beijing — and two more men’s spots remain up for grabs. Both riders earned their respective spots on the inaugural American Olympic BMX squad by emerging as the No. 1 rider in a ranking system devised by USA Cycling. The ranking was based on results at the world’s top international competitions from 2007-08, including the 2007 UCI world championships, the UCI Supercross, the USA Cycling national championships and the 2008 worlds, held May 31 in China.

Some of you might be surprised, or even shocked, to see Filip Meirhaeghe’s mug gracing the cover of VeloNews issue No. 10, now on newsstands and in bike shops. I can understand why.

Sunday was Atherton Day at the downhill World Cup, as Rachel Atherton and her brother Gee (both Animal Commencal) swept the titles at VallNord in Andorra. Their wins follow brother Dan Atherton's victory the evening before in the 4X, making this definitely the first time a family of riders have all won World Cups at the same event.

After a hiatus of nearly a month on the cross-country side, the Mountain Bike World Cup begins again Saturday with round four in Andorra — a small principality straddling the Pyrenees between France and Spain on the Mediterranean coast. In the evening, round two of the 4-Cross takes place, followed on Sunday by the Downhill.

USA Cycling announced today the 12 junior and U23 cross-country athletes that have been nominated to represent the United States at the 2008 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy, June 17-22. Four men and two women have been nominated to the U23 cross-country squad, while four men and two women were also nominated to the junior cross-country team.

Soukup, Kraft win Bike the Rock Austrian Christoph Soukup (Fuji) took the second round of Germany’s Bundesliga national cross-country series, the Bike the Rock race in Heubach on May 24. The Austrian climbed away from German Moritz Milatz (Multivan-Merida) and world champion Julien Absalon (Orbea) to take his biggest win of 2008. “My legs worked really fine in the uphill,” Soukup said.

More bumps, rocks and obstacles have been added to Beijing’s Olympic mountain-bike course, which failed to impress riders in its debut last year, according to a UCI expert. Peter Van den Abeele, the UCI’s mountain-bike sports coordinator, and Phil Saxena, a renowned four-cross course designer, traveled to Beijing during May 8-15 to oversee construction on the 6.2km circuit. The course, which sits in a suburban park in western Beijing, now boasts five new sections of tricky, technical riding, plus additional obstacles on five previously built sectors.

Top-level mountain bike racing returns to Angel Fire resort in Northern New Mexico this weekend as the Mountain States Cup’s premier event, the Chile Challenge, celebrates its 20th birthday. And as a fitting double-decade present, the 2008 Chile Challenge boasts a plethora of awards and titles for both gravity and cross-country racers.

The longest winning streak in NORBA/NMBS cross-country history came to a close this past weekend as Georgia Gould (Luna) recorded a DNF at the third round of 2008, held in 100-degree heat in Santa Ynez, California. Kelli Emmett (Giant) crossed the finish line first to take her first-ever NMBS cross-country win. For Gould, who took eight straight NMBS wins from 2007-08, the rare abandonment came after a frightening bout with heat stroke and severe dehydration.

Emmett, Taberlay Claim NMBS win in Santa Ynez
Kelli Emmett (Giant) took her first-career National Mountain Bike Series cross-country win at the third round of the 2008 series, held May 17-18 at the Chamberlain Ranch in Santa Ynez, California. Visiting Australian Sid Taberlay (Avanti) took his first NMBS victory in the men’s race. Both events saw riders tackle the course in 100-degree heat. Emmett’s victory marked the end of the NMBS winning streak of Georgia Gould (Luna), whose eight-round streak dates back to March of 2007.

Barry Wicks is already a household name in the domestic cyclocross and mountain bike scene, but this year he is trying his hand at joining mountain bike racing’s elite crowd on the World Cup.

Twenty-two-year-old Brandon Draugelis (SoBe/Cannondale) gave Tinker Juarez (MonaVie/Cannondale) a day long challenge at the 2008 Dirt Sweat & Gears in Tennessee May 4. [nid:75961] The third stop on the USAC National Ultra-Endurance Calendar was a grueling 12 hour, 11 lap battle that started with "peanut butter" mud from the previous night's rain. Juarez, more than 24 years Draugelis' senior, took the top spot on the podium by six minutes.