Christopher Blevins and Riley Amos had the Americans sitting in first place after their laps Wednesday. On a tough day in the cold Austrian mud, it wasn’t enough for a medal, as the U.S. team placed fourth.
The two Durango men’s mountain bikers reunited on the U.S. squad for the six-rider team relay race at the International Cycling Union (UCI) World Mountain Bike Championships in Leogang, Austria. A year earlier in Canada, the duo were part of the American team that won a silver medal in the team relay, which was the first medal for USA Cycling in the event since 2007.
With all of the same riders eligible to compete again, the squad had goals to bring home another medal. But elite American women’s rider Kate Courtney, the 2018 world champion and 2019 World Cup overall champion, didn’t compete in the team relay. In stepped Erin Huck into the elite women’s spot, and Madigan Munro of Boulder competed as the Americans’ junior women’s rider. Haley Batten returned as the team’s under-23 women’s rider.
Blevins was the men’s under-23 competitor while Amos was the men’s junior. Utah’s Keegan Swenson was back to anchor the squad as the men’s elite rider.
Blevins, who called it perhaps the muddiest course he has ever raced on a cold and wet day in Austria, turned in the fastest first lap of the race to get the U.S. in first place after a second-position call-up. His time of 8 minutes, 2 seconds on the shortened first lap had the team two seconds ahead of Italy and four seconds in front of France.
Blevins gave way to Amos for the second lap, and the 18-year-old put down the fastest lap time of any men’s junior racer with a time of 13:54. That was 10 seconds faster than Spain junior Alberto Barroso Gomez.
Amos had given the U.S. a huge 37-second lead on France.
“Felt really good out there in these conditions,” Amos said in a post to his Instagram story.
Batten went third, and the Americans went from first to fourth with her lap time of 16:55. Then it was Munro’s turn, and her lap time of 18:41 put the U.S. in sixth place before elite riders Huck and Swenson got to go. Huck finished in 18:34 to hold the U.S. position in sixth. Swenson’s final lap of 14:23 helped the U.S. climb into fourth. Swenson called the course slippery on the way up and even more slippery on the way down.
France would win the race with a combined time of 1 hour, 27 minutes, 34 seconds. That was 1:35 in front of Italy and 2:06 better than third-place Switzerland. The U.S. time was 2:55 behind France and 49 seconds behind third place. Great Britain was fifth, nine seconds behind the U.S. and 3:04 down from the winning time.
Amos and fellow U.S. junior rider Ruth Holcomb will get to race in the junior cross-country mountain bike world championship races Thursday. Holcomb’s start time is 5:30 a.m., and Amos will follow at 6:25 a.m.
It is the debut world championship race for Holcomb, while Amos will look to improve upon a 14th place finish at last year’s world championships in Canada. He was riding in the top six before a few mechanical issues and a broken chain on the final lap saw him fall out of the top 10.
The UCI uses a points ranking system to determine starting position. The points froze when the summer season was shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amos was the top-ranked junior men’s rider in the world when the points froze, giving him the No. 1 position going into Thursday’s race.
“Feeling ready to give my all for the main event tomorrow,” Amos said.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
