USA Cycling has announced the 12 junior and U23 cross-country athletes that have been nominated to represent the United States at the upcoming 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 crosscountry team.
For a team to defend a race lead over seven stages takes a tremendous amount of effort on everyone's part to ensure the win. For one rider to do it on his own start to finish is almost unimaginable. But John Murphy of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis pulled it off during the five-day, seven-stage Tour of Atlanta this past weekend, despite having to contend with full squads form a number of teams, including UCI continental team Toshiba. Murphy won the opening-stage time trial by a solid 0:31 margin, but had five members of Toshiba within 0:55 of him after the stage.