Durangoan Riley Amos was the fastest mountain biker who didn’t win a medal on Friday at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.
Amos (Team USA/Trek Factory Racing) started in the front row of the men’s U23 cross-country Olympic world championship and sprinted hard to stay in the front. Amos was in the leader’s group after the start loop, and they got some early separation from the rest of the spread-out 89-rider field.
The mountain bikers then rode seven laps on some technical singletrack, including a big gap jump.
Amos stayed with the other three leaders and even took an early lead before getting passed on a climb. About 10 kilometers into the 26K race, Amos was in second place, only one second behind the leader.
By the time Amos began his fifth lap, however, Charlie Aldridge of Great Britain had pushed the pace enough to create a gap among the leaders and Amos slipped to fourth.
Aldridge continued to fly up the climbs and descents to win the rainbow jersey in 1 hour, 13 minutes and 53 seconds.
Adrien Boichis of France finished second (1:14:06), Dario Lillo of Switzerland took the bronze (1:14:22) while Amos finished by himself in fourth (1:15:16).
“It was a really, really good day. I’m super happy with fourth place at the World Championships,” Amos said. “I made the lead group of four early, and we had a nice gap. Then at the front of that race, when a group happens, it’s just a game of half percents, wherever you can gain them or take them. I was feeling really, really good. I thought I could push the pace just a little bit. I went over that half-percent by just a little bit, and all of a sudden blew up and fell off that group. I’m still super happy with the result, but it does hurt to miss a medal by just that much.”
Another Durango mountain biker competed with Amos in the U23 XCO championship, Carson Beard. Beard made every cut and was able to finish the race and he ended up finishing 54th in 1:22:55.
Bjorn Riley (23rd, 1:18:15) and Brayden Johnson (32nd, 1:19:06) also raced for Team USA.
In the women’s U23 cross-country Olympic world championship, Bailey Cioppa of Durango represented the USA.
Cioppa ended up placing 43rd in the 55-rider field. Cioppa got cut off two laps before the finish. Samara Maxwell of New Zealand won the title in 1:16:26. Switzerland riders rounded out the podium with Ginia Caluori crossing second (+1:01) and Ronja Blochlinger third (+1:27).
Madigan Munro was Team USA’s top finisher in 13th (+4:54) while Sofia Waite finished nine seconds later in 14th.
