Nobody had beaten Colorado Mesa University’s Madigan Munro or Torbjorn Roed heading into Sunday’s team relay at the USA Cycling Collegiate MTB National Championships at Purgatory Resort.
Munro and Roed both won the cross-country and short-track titles, but Fort Lewis riders Toby Hassett and Natalie Quinn got the best of them Sunday to help FLC win the team relay, along with Michaela Thompson and Carson Beard.
“It was so cool,” said FLC coach Chad Cheeney. “The crowd was going wild. It was an upset, for sure.”
Hassett started the race for FLC and got the Skyhawks into second place behind Brevard after Roed slipped a pedal.
“Toby had a great start and raced two of the fastest guys of the week,” Cheeney said.
Beard started in second, but Ivan Sippy of CMU was able to pass him.
Quinn started her lap in third place, about three to four seconds behind Munro.
Quinn hung with Munro on the first climb. Later in the race on another climb, Quinn was still chasing Munro when they disappeared into some trees. When they reappeared, Quinn had taken the lead.
“She totally threw down,” Cheeney said. “Afterward she said, ‘It’s about time someone beat her!’ She was so pumped.”
Thompson started the final leg with about a two-second lead over Ruby Ryan and wasn’t about to let it go. Thompson held off Ryan and the rest of the field to help FLC win the final event of the championships.
“(Michaela) pretty much dropped her on the first climb,” Cheeney said. “It was really cool to see our ladies beat those CMU girls.”
Colorado Mesa, however, finished second to hang on to the team omnium lead. CMU won the team omnium title with 688 points, followed by FLC (680), Brevard (542), Lees-McRae College (541) and Western Colorado University (484) in fifth.
FLC and Mesa finished one-two in all nine disciplines in team points, with FLC taking first in the relay, women’s dual slalom and the men’s and women’s downhill races. CMU finished first as a team in both cross-country races, both short-track races and also the men’s dual slalom, led by seven individual national championship performances.
Fiona Dougherty of FLC won the dual slalom, and the team won the relay.
With the home crowd cheering the rider’s around every turn Sunday, however, the Skyhawks won all three of Sunday’s finals as a team, which also included the downhill championships.
“The community and student support for us was outstanding on Sunday,” Cheeney said, calling it a “Durango vibe kind of race.”
Fans also showed up for Saturday’s short-track finals, which started with a climb and some bermy dirt turns before descending through Purgatory Resort’s base village.
Thompson and Beard led the Skyhawks with second-place finishes while Hassett reached the podium in fifth.
Thompson beat Ryan at Ryan’s strength, on a climb, to move up from third to second during the race and kept pushing to score the silver.
“I’m super-proud of Michaela,” Cheeney said. “Usually she gets outclimbed by Ruby Ryan, but she put the wood to her today.”
Munro, who is Thompson’s childhood friend from Boulder, won the nine-lap race in 29:03, 17 seconds ahead of Thompson.
Beard’s twin brother, Austin, who races for Mesa, finished one spot ahead of him Friday in cross-country. On the short-track, however, Carson progressively picked people off throughout the race, including his brother, to grab silver behind Roed.
“I think he had a front-row start, he could have been fighting for the win,” Cheeney said about Carson, a freshman from Vermont.
Hassett led the men’s race for a couple of laps but dropped his chain on the stairs. Hassett kept fighting though and reached the podium in fifth.
“There were a lot of mistakes on the stairs with chains falling off, and also racing on the grass on off-camber hills,” Cheeney said. “It was kind of a climber’s course.”
Madelyn Roberson was the second Skyhawk to finish in the women’s race, crossing eighth (+3:09). Quinn finished 10th, Aleah Austin placed 12th, An-Mei Ellisor finished 15th and Sabrina Hayes placed 23rd.
Cobe Freeburn was the third Skyhawk to finish in the men’s short-track, finishing eighth. Guy Leshem placed ninth, Kellen Caldwell finished 11th and Becket Ledger placed 12th.
Robbie Day of Colorado College won the club men’s title and Durangoan Lauren Aggeler won the women’s club title for Northern Arizona. The University of Colorado won the club team omnium title.
