2011 Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals Begin Friday in Angel Fire
The Collegiate Mountain Bike Championships begin Friday in New Mexico
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (ST) — The 2011 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships begin Friday and continue until Sunday at Angel Fire Bike Park in Angel Fire, N.M.
The most competitive cycling schools in the country will compete for stars-and-stripes jerseys in several events including the individual and team omnium.
Erica Zaveta (Erwinna, Pa./Lees McRae College) and Jill Behlen (Boulder, Colo./University of Wyoming), are Division I riders to keep an eye on. Zaveta won the women’s “A” short-track cross-country race while placing third in the cross-country and downhill competitions at the Southeastern Collegiate Cycling Conference (SECCC) Championships last weekend. Behlen won the women’s under-23 race at the 2011 USA Cycling Mountain Bike Cross-Country National Championships in Ketchum, Idaho, in July to earn a spot on the American team at the 2011 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Champery, Switzerland.
Rotem Ishay (Durango, Colo./Fort Lewis College), who won the cross-country and short-track cross-country races at the 2010 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in Truckee, Calif., is considered among the favorites for the men’s Division I individual omnium. Challenging Ishay will be Victor Alber (Royal Palm Beach, Fla./University of Florida) who earned the season-long omnium in the SECCC. Last weekend, Alber finished third in the short-track cross-country as well as the cross-country races while placing eighth in the dual slalom
Competition begins Friday on the 5.5-mile cross-country course, with a total of 1,400 feet of elevation gain and loss for each circuit. Racing begins at 9 a.m. when the Division I females will be followed five minutes later by the Division II women. The Division I men follow at noon with the Division II men five minutes later. Seeding for the entire downhill competition begins at 4 p.m.
Racing continues Saturday at 9 a.m. on the short-track cross-country course. The downhill finals are slated to begin Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. Riders will descend 2.8 miles, losing 1,700 feet of elevation.
Sunday marks the return of the dual slalom competition, as riders will contest the course, which descends 100 feet in a quarter-mile span.
For more information on the race visit https://www.usacycling.org/events/2011/collegiatemtb/