Regardless of the sport, high-level athletes flourish with a strong support system around them. It’s rarely an easy path to the top level of any sport and there are setbacks. Family and friends are crucial to helping the athlete bounce back and propelling them forward. On the flip side, family and friends are there to celebrate triumphs and achievements.
Elizabeth Barnet remembers her daughter Savilia Blunk riding with her older brothers in Inverness, California, and wanting to follow in their footsteps as Blunk’s brother was racing in a development team in high school.
Barnet said Blunk has been very interested in mountain biking since she was a young teenager. Barnet said the support Blunk has had hasn’t come on one path. It’s been a series of connections and some tough times during COVID-19 for Blunk and her now fiance Cole Paton.
“The actual path that she took was not something we could have predicted,” Barnet said. “She loves what she does a lot. She's very artistic too. She’s very graceful and it's like a craft, her cycling. That's a family trait too I’d say, because her father and her grandfather were both artists. But no Olympians in our family that I know of.”
Blunk’s confidence has increased over the years which has allowed her to increase what she envisions as possible, according to Barnet. Blunk has made progress in her thinking and Barnet knows how important the mind is in Blunk’s profession.
Moving to Durango was key for Blunk’s progression because the Durango and Fort Lewis College communities inspired a sense of fun and inclusion which was important for Blunk, according to Barnet.
“She impresses me, she really does in a lot of ways,” Barnet said about Blunk. “Her maturity around that and of course, she's got people who contribute to that. Cole has been a beautiful kind of balance and enhancement to their lives both of them each to the other.”
Barnet’s heart rate is usually very high but realizes she doesn’t have any control over the races. She usually gets excited and nervous whether she’s at Blunk’s races or watching them live in the middle of the night when Blunk is racing in the World Cup in Europe.
She doesn’t know where on the course she will be on Sunday at the women’s Olympic mountain bike race. But she knows she’s grateful to see her daughter do what she loves.
Christopher Blevins comes from a family of doctors. His father, Field, is a retired orthopedic surgeon. Field’s brother is a doctor at Stanford. Christopher’s sister, Kaylee, is in medical school. Field’s father was a pediatrician.
Starting when Christopher was six, Field was taking Christopher to BMX races when Field wasn’t working. Christopher raced BMX until he was 16 and when Christopher was young, Field just wanted Christopher to have fun doing something healthy. He wondered at the time if these BMX skills would transfer over to mountain biking and road cycling.
Field and Christopher were even flying to some of the biggest events and they would come back from these events more times than not with Christopher being a winner.
Now, Field remembers those trips fondly for the process, not the results, and the moments with his son.
“It's just all of the memories that are important,” Field said. “As everything has stepped up, as you can envision, it's still tough, but over the years, there's less and less and appropriately so, dependency on the parent. It's an adjustment for the parent and it's both an opportunity for the child and it's how it should be.”
One thing Field learned from his father was to do whatever your passion is and be the best you can be at it. After all the years of watching Christopher, Field feels like he knows how his son will feel after a race whether Field gets the phone call from Christopher an hour after the race or the next day. Field knows Christopher is focused on the process and performing up to his potential.
Christopher began riding mountain bikes when he was eight. Field remembers Christopher going on his first real mountain bike ride with Durango Devo co-founder Chad Cheeney up near Fort Lewis College. Then Field’s wife, Priscilla, got a call from Cheeney saying Christopher had crashed and hurt his wrist. Cheeney felt awful about it but it didn’t deter Christopher and once he healed up he was back on the trails and joined Durango Devo.
“Then when he got to Devo, it was really about as their slogan is, never forget the feeling, building cyclists for life and having fun,” Field said. “So it was like the BMX practice sessions where these kids at Durango BMX, they’d ride their bike for hours and be working really hard, but they wouldn't know it. They were just having so much fun. Devo was like that with the camaraderie and it was low-key. If you want to race with that's available and we'll help you with that. But let's go ride our bikes. That's a great start for them.”
By the time Christopher was in high school, he was super busy doing BMX, road racing and he was on Durango Devo. He gave up BMX racing to focus on road racing and mountain biking. He saw the older BMX riders had a different lifestyle with a lot of time in the weight room and they were more sprint athletes who don’t look like him, according to Field.
Then after road racing for a few years for Axeon – Hagens Berman’s development team, Christopher decided to focus on mountain biking full-time in 2019. It has paid off and provided plenty of great memories for him and his family.
One memory was Field watching Christopher at the World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy, via stream on his iPad at home and the stream cut out before the end of the race. Priscilla was at the event and Field found out his son won the short track race from his wife’s screams of joy over the phone as Christopher crossed the line.
Another big win was at Snowshoe, West Virginia, in 2022 when Christopher won the World Cup short-track race. Field was so excited to see his son at the podium he rushed past the security guard. Security started grabbing him but let go once Christopher came over to hug his father.
Field and Christopher will hope for similar success and celebrations on Monday after the men’s mountain bike race.
When Christopher was younger, Field would be positioned at the start line to hold his water bottles, his jacket and an umbrella.
Now Field plans to get on a climb he thinks will be important in the race to cheer for his son. He’ll give a little extra encouragement where it might make a difference in Christopher’s pursuit of his Olympic dreams.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
