Sofia Gomez-Villafañe won’t be stopped.
The Fort Lewis College junior is fresh off a collegiate national championship in cyclocross after dominating the women’s Division I race at the USA Cycling nationals last weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, and she also claimed second in the women’s Under-23 race.
Those results came after a collegiate women’s omnium championship at the mountain bike national championships in late 2015.
Next up: the world championship.
Gomez-Villafañe qualified for the UCI Cyclocross World Championships for the U23 division on Jan. 30-31 in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium.
“I am going to be a fish out of water for sure,” Gomez-Villafañe said of the trip to Belgium. “I’ve never been outside of Argentina or the U.S., so a trip across the pond will be very interesting and something I’ve always wanted to do. I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon.
“I want to come into it aggressive and ride my heart out.”
Unsure if she could make the trip because of financial constraints, Gomez-Villafañe started a fundraiser on gofundme.com to help raise money for the trip. She was asking for $1,600 and had raised $2,600 by 7 p.m. Wednesday, only nine hours after launching the campaign with donations coming in from across the Durango cycling community, including a pair of $500 donations. Shipping two bikes to Belgium and back will cost $800 alone, and she hopes to raise as much as possible to help pay for airfare and expenses.
Gomez-Villafañe is originally from Patagonia, Argentina, and moved to Los Gatos, California, at the age of 12. She then moved to Durango compete for Fort Lewis College.
She became a U.S. citizen in 2013 but has yet to obtain a passport. She will drive to Denver on Thursday to try to get a passport in time to make the trip to Belgium. And she’s eager to wear the stars and stripes jersey representing the U.S. in Belgium.
“It will mean a lot to me. Bittersweet because I was born and raised in Argentina and moved to the States, but I have been given so many opportunities here I know I couldn’t of had living in Argentina,” she said. “I’m very grateful to the country, so I’m really excited to have the stars and stripes on my jersey.”
Durango’s Carmen Small, a professional cyclist who has competed in many of the world’s top events, took notice in Gomez-Villafañe a few years ago and has taken up coaching the FLC rider. She wasn’t surprised by Gomez-Villafañe’s results last weekend but said she impressed a lot of people with her championship and second-place finish.
“She’s really developed in one year a huge amount,” Small said of Gomez-Villafañe. “We started working together and piecing things together for cross season, and I thought for sure she could win collegiate nationals and do well in U23. She has a lot of people backing her because they see the raw talent she has.”
Gomez-Villafañe returned to training Wednesday and is trying to balance school work and her part time job working in the corporate offices of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. In her spare time, she’s trying to pick up any information she can on what to expect in Europe.
This year is also the first time UCI has offered a U23 women’s cyclocross world championship race, so Gomez-Villafañe is ready to be part of history.
“It’s a great moment for women’s cycling history on the cyclocross side, so I want to soak up every experience,” she said.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
How to help
Donate: https://www.gofundme.com/nd8wanfw
