Day two of the 2023 UCI World Championships saw racing at the Perth Gran Fondo course, the Fort William Downhill track, and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.
The second day at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome opened with the Women’s Team Pursuit qualification round. The U.S. team of Olivia Cummins (Fort Collins, Colo.; DNA Cycling), Chloé Dygert (Brownsburg, Ind.; CANYON//SRAM Racing), Jennifer Valente (San Diego; TWENTY24 Pro Cycling), and Lily Williams (Tallahassee, Fla.; Human Powered Health) performed well, stopping the clock at 4:14.814. The team’s time placed them in third behind Great Britain and New Zealand, going into the next round of competition on Saturday.
In the Women’s 500-meter Time Trial, multi-time national champion Mandy Marquardt (Allentown, Pa.; Team Novo Nordisk) started the event in heat eight. She finished her ride in a time of 34.456, bettering her time from the national championships by over a tenth of a second.
During the evening session, Valente came back to tackle her first individual event, the Women’s Scratch race. The 40-lap race was exciting with several attacks breaking up the group on the latter half of the event. Spain and Egypt put in a massive attack at 6 laps to go, where the two riders separated themselves from the bunch. At three laps to go, a Canadian rider brought the group back together. Valente was floating towards the middle of the group but stayed in a good position on the outside. She focused on her position to execute the perfect attack. At one lap to go, she put in an incredible effort up around the outside and was in front with half a lap remaining. Dutch rider, Maike Van Der Dunn followed the attack and kept on her wheel, but Valente was able to edge her out at the line. This marked Valente’s second individual World Title, and sixth gold medal in her tenure as an elite rider.
The group stayed together for most of the race, but Valente knew she had to stay on offense. Spain and Egypt put in a massive attack at six laps to go, where the two riders separated themselves from the bunch. The race stayed together for most of the event, but Valente knew she had to stay on the offensive. “The GB rider that attacked a little bit earlier in the race kind of mixed things up. From that point, the flow was somewhat disrupted, which made for a more exciting race. The sprint was pretty chaotic, and it was strung out still with five to go and four to go, but it ultimately did end up coming down to a field sprint in the last couple of laps,” said Valente. With several more events to go, she’ll be setting her eyes on the next race.
Valente attacked early but went into with a strategy saying, “I couldn’t see her, but I was very aware. You always kind of think of what you would do. If I were her, I would be trying to take a run. When I went knowing someone was always going to be there pushing on the outside.”
When asked how winning tonight’s event felt, she said, “It’s just the beginning of competition for me. There’s a lot of racing to go, so it’s really exciting, but I’ll be trying to refocus for the rest of the events.”
Today the juniors completed their final downhill runs to kick off the first off-road championship events of the week. Ryan Pinkerton (Aliso Viejo, Calif.; GT Factory Racing) was the one to watch after qualifying first yesterday. Unfortunately, Pinkerton crashed early on in practice which ended his World Championships week. Evan Medcalf (Albuquerque, N.M.; Commencal USA) was the fastest American of the day going eight seconds faster than his qualifying run slotting him in 13th.
Gavin Tomlinson (Burbank, Calif.; Specialized | DVO | Fox Racing) finished 28th, same as qualifying, with a time of 4:47.5. Nate Kitchen (Bakersfield, Calif.; KHS Factory Team) crashed and did not finish his final run.
It was a lot of firsts for the group of Junior Women. All of the riders competing in this division were competing in a World Championship for the first time. Riley Miller (East Burke, Vt.; Killington Mountain School) was the top American taking sixth. Miller finished in a time of 5:24. National Champion, Kale Cushman (Old Town, Maine, Slipping Gears Cycling) took ninth with Abby Ronca (Bethlehem, Pa.; The Gravity Academy) in 13th, and Taylor Ostgaard (Selah, Wash.; Transition Factory Racing) slotted rounding the team out in 17th.
The Elites started off the day with qualifications. The top 60 riders will move on to the final round tomorrow at Fort William. The American’s proved that they are podium worthy with Luca Shaw (Hendersonville, N.C.; Canyon Cllctv) finishing two seconds back from the top qualifier Loic Bruni (France) who ran a 4:25.57. Dakotah Norton (Clinton, Tenn.; Intense Factory Racing) finished on the same second as Shaw putting them fifth and seventh, respectively.
Austin Dooley (Yucaipa, Calif.; Commencal / Schwalbe) qualified 25th with Dante Silva (Chula Vista, Calif.; Canyon Cllctv) finsihing in 36th. Christopher Grice (Brevard, N.C.; Generation Specialized) and Neko Mulally (Pisgah Forest, N.C.; Frameworks Racing) would also make it into the Finals finishing 42nd and 56th. Dylan Maples (Orangevale, Calif.; Commencal USA) had a major crash going over the bars forcing him to DNF and will not be starting tomorrow’s final round.
In the Elite Women’s race, Anna Newkirk (Riehen, Switzerland; Beyond Racing) rode to a strong seventh place finishing ten seconds off first place qualifier Vali Holl (Austria). The second American in the field, Abby Hogie (Heidelberg, Germany; Beyond Racing) took 26th heading into tomorrow’s finals.
Friday morning kicked off with the Medio Fondo and Gran Fondo. Athletes participating in the Medio Fondo completed 85.7 kilometers. Gran Fondo riders completed nearly doubled that distance by doing 160.3 kilometers.
Both events started and ended in beautiful and historic Perth, Scotland. With 47 finishers in the Men’s and Women’s events, the United States managed to finish the day with three gold medals, and one silver.
A full list of results can be found below -
19-34 Men – 177th Cobi Allen, 215th Jared Shore (Madison, MS), 256th Jordan Picchiottino
35-39 Men – 98th Alan Fischer (Atlanta, Ga.; The Paceline Project p/b LC Food)
40-44 Men – 14th Owen Shott, 156th Ashley Murphy
45-49 Men – 83rd Brian Zimny Sacramento, Calif.; Creative Blue Monster Racing), 160th Norman Zellers
50-54 Men – 38th Jason Boynton (Park City, Utah), 41st Dan Netzer (Norfolk, Va.; Celerity Cycling), 47th Dan Bryant, 128th Trent Maddox, 176th Gene Nuqui, 190th John J. Foster III, 193rd Mark Stoesz, 213th Julio Saenz Jr.
55-59 Men – 15th Kyle Glerum, 57th Nick Theobald, 133rd Fred Porter, 149th Scott Wagar (Tacoma, Wash.), 155th John Fillyaw (Atlanta, Ga.)
60-64 Men – 51st Brendan Sullivan (Atlanta, Ga.) , 62nd Steven Murdock, 74th James Foster (Clayton, N.C.), 101st James Whited (Port Charlotte, Fla.), 102nd Bill Groves, 111th Derek Wilford (Euclid, Ohio; ETP Cycling), 120th James Schaefer (Henrico, Va.)
65-69 Men – 54th Alan Roberts (Corta Madera, Calif.)
70-74 Men – 9th Kalman Szkalak (Capistrano Beach, Calif.), 33rd Geary Schwartz (Clarksville, Tenn.), 40th Walter Hard (Chattahoochee Hills, Ga.)
75-79 Men – 4th Ed Chamberlin (Grand Junction, Colo.)
80-84 Men – 1st James Macdonald (Williamsburg, Va,)
19-34 Women – 34th Meredith Byrne (Brookside, N.J.), 40th Stephanie Edwards (Huntsville, Ala.)
35-39 Women – 25th Steph Anderson (Salem, Utah)
45-49 Women – 29th Rebecca Menke
50-54 Women – 1st Amy Phillips (Chattanooga, Tenn.), 22nd Carolyn Maddox (Fernandina Beach, Fla.)
55-59 Women – 13th Jennifer Slawta (Talent, Ore.)
60-64 Women – 2nd Lillian Pfluke, 5th Ruth Clemence, 10th Beth Leasure-Hudson (Shepherdstown, W.V.; Artemis Racing)
65-69 Women – 5th Diane Schleicher (Dahlonega, Ga.; Sorella Cycling), 7th Betsy Hard (Chattahoochee Hills, Ga.; Sorella Cycling)
70-74 Women – 1st Vanessa Cooney (APO)
The third day of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships has BMX Freestyle kicking off its qualification rounds. The crew in Fort William will finish up the downhill events with the Elite Men’s and Women’s finals. The Junior Men and Women will take on the 8-mile circuit fin Glasgow for the first day of road racing. Back at the velodrome, the Women’s Team Pursuit squad goes for the final round.
