Thursday, July 5th, MTB Mountain Bike Nationals
Utah had a National Competition winner and seven podium finishers in the 2012 MTB National Championships at Ketchum, ID Sun Valley.
Master Men’s 50-54 category 2 rider John Higgins from Salt Lake City, Utah won his age-graded National Competition and was joined on the podium with Ski Utah rider Paul Lasteyo, Salt Lake City, Utah with the silver medal.
Junior 15-18 category 3 rider Daniel Riley, Park City, Utah, won his category at USA Cycling Mountain Bike Nationals in the first race of the day on Thursday, July 5th. While unavailable for an interview after the event, judging from the five minute gap he held over the second place finisher, Riley obviously found his comfort-zone on the twenty mile course with over 2500 feet of climbing.
Master Men’s 30-34 category 2 rider Eric Greenwood, Ogden, Utah and Master’s Men 35-39 category 2 rider Filip Wojcikowski, Park City, Utah rode to respective silver medals. Senior Men 19-29 category 3 rider Dalin Hatch rode to a bronze medal, and Master Women’s 40-44 category 2 rider Lori Harward, Salt Lake City, Utah impressively took a silver medal.
Overcast with a sprinkle or two with a breeze on the ridge tops, temperature in the low 60s in the morning events has given way to mostly sunny skis for the short-track racing in the afternoon.
Cycling Utah,
Great coverage on the website of Days 1, 2, and 4 of MTB Nationals in Sun Valley this past weekend… but where’s the Day 3 (Saturday) coverage for the Cat 1 and Pro racers??? Several Utah racers (men and women) filled the Cat 1 podiums — 5 local racers earned “Stars and Bars” National Champion jerseys and a total of 16 racers hammered their way onto the podium on the day (I’m including Kris Walker from Idaho in these counts since she rides for Contender and is a regular on the UTCX circuit and local road races). Nick Fisher and Troy Heithhecker, both riding for Roosters/Bikers Edge out of Ogden, destroyed their competition and won their categories (25-29 and 35-39, respectively), turning in the #2 and #3 overall times for the amateur XC course (the #1 time, 10 sec faster than Nick’s, was turned in by the Singlespeed winner from CO). Zan Treasure (Ogden, Bountiful Mazda/Bountiful Bicycle Masters Team) survived a late a flat rear tire the last ~mile of the course, which he rode all the way to the finish line, to take the Masters 55-59 title by 9 seconds. Dave Harward, Cycling Utah contributor, took the bronze in the Cat 1 Masters 40-44 group. I could go on about the Cat 1 results…
As for the Pro races, Alex Grant (SLC, Cannondale Factory Racing) apparently powered through a cold to finish in 8th. Brent Pontius (Ogden, Roosters/Bikers Edge) was the only other local male Pro to roll to the start line Saturday afternoon, turning in a very respectable 34th place finish. In the Pro women’s race, Evelyn Dong (Park City) had a great race and finished in 10th.
Anyway, those are just a few of the highlights that would make the cut in my version of the Day 3 MTB Nationals summary that didn’t make it onto the website…
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for commenting.
We have posted a couple of more stories here:
https://www.cyclingwest.com/category/racing/mountain-bike-racing/ that fill in a couple of the gaps in coverage (but not all of them).
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