Forty-four athletes will represent the United States at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships next month in Australia, and six of those athletes are either from Durango or have ties to the area through Fort Lewis College.
Three-time defending cross-country mountain bike national champion Howard Grotts will headline the USA team. The 24-year-old from Durango was 21st at last year’s XC worlds in the Czech Republic. In his last World Cup event in Cairns, Australia, the site of this year’s championships, he finished 81st in a race held in April of 2016.
Grotts, who represented the U.S. at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, will be joined on the men’s elite team by Utah’s Keegan Swenson, a former Fort Lewis College athlete. Swenson is second this year in the Pro XCT rankings. The men’s elite team will be rounded out by another Durangoan and FLC alum Payson McElveen, the marathon national champion who has put together strong results all summer. The native of Austin, Texas, was third in the men’s XC race at nationals last month.
The men’s 23-and-under team will be led by Durango’s Christopher Blevins. At only 19 years old, Blevins is a force on mountain bikes as well as road bikes. He won the US Cup series this summer in the men’s elite category and is the U23 national champ in XC. He will be joined by North Carolina’s Luke Vrouwenvelder, California’s Sandy Floren, Alabama’s Jerry Dugout and Cole Paton, a Fort Lewis College rider from Cashmere, Washington.
Another soon-to-be Skyhawk and Durango resident Katja Freeburn made the team. She will represent USA Cycling on the junior women’s team in Australia along with California’s Gwendalyn Gibson and Ezra Smith of Breckenridge.
More than 300 mountain bikers will attend the championships Sept. 5-10 at the Smithfield Regional Park at James Cook University. Cross country and downhill events will be contested.
“I have high hopes of earning medals in cross country, downhill and 4X at Worlds this year,” USA Cycling’s Mountain Bike Program Director Marc Gullickson said in a news release. “We have an exceptionally strong team with a number of obvious contenders and the depth of our young riders is outstanding.”
The week before the world championships, the World Cup finals will be held in Val di Sole, Italy.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
