USA Cycling recently announced its team for the upcoming world cross-country mountain bike championships, and five Durango cyclists made the cut.
Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) and Savilia Blunk (Rockrider Ford Racing) were both selected to race in the elite field after recently capturing national titles in both short-track cross-country and cross-country Olympic disciplines.
Riley Amos (Trek Factory Racing), Carson Beard (Team Durango Segment 28) and Bailey Cioppa (Bear National Team), meanwhile, will all compete in the U23 championships.
The five Durangoans have all been racing in the UCI world cup this season and will take that experience with them to Scotland.
The 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships will make history in Glasgow, Scotland, as the first World Championship where 13 events will be contested across seven disciplines in 10 days. Mountain bikers will compete in the downhill races on Aug. 3-5, marathon on Aug. 6, and cross-country events on Aug. 8-12.
This event is one of the first automatic Olympic qualifiers for the Cross-County event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
All of USA’s elite cross-country racers are veterans of the Mountain Bike World Championships roster. Blevins, who won a short-track world title in 2021, will be America’s lone elite man competing.
After winning a short-track national title in Pennsylvania this month, Blevins said he’ll be shooting for a second short-track world championship.
Blunk, meanwhile, is one of five elite women who will ride for the U.S., including a couple cyclists she beat to win the stars-and-stripes recently in Pennsylvania. Haley Batten (Utah; Specialized Factory Racing), Kate Courtney (California; SCOTT-SRAM Factory Racing), Gwendalyn Gibson (California; Trek Factory Racing) and Kelsey Urban (California; Team 31), will join Blunk and all be vying for a podium position.
Amos and Beard will be joined by two more Colorado riders on the U23 men’s team: Brayden Johnson (Littleton; Bear National Team) and Bjorn Riley (Boulder; Trek Future Racing).
Cioppa will also compete with a pair of Colorado bikers in the women’s U23 races: Madigan Munro (Boulder; Trek Factory Racing) and Sofia Waite (Littleton; WE Development).
The junior cross-country teams include: Daniel English (California; Bear National Team), Raulito Gutierrez (California; Bear National Team), Nicholas Konecny (Breckenridge; Bear National Team) and Magnus White (Boulder; Boulder Junior Cycling) for the men, and Andie Aagard (Utah; Bear National Team), Kellie Harrington (Massachusetts; Bear National Team) and Vida Lopez de San Roman (California; Bear National Team) for the women.
On the downhill side, Luca Shaw (North Carolina; Canyon Cllctv), Dakotah Norton (Tennessee; Intense Factory Racing) and Anna Newkirk (Switzerland; Beyond Racing) have all had top-10 performances at the first three world cups of the year in the elite categories. They’ll be joined by Austin Dooley (California; Commencal/Schwalbe), Christopher Grice (North Carolina; Generation Specialized), Dylan Maples (California; Commencal USA), Neko Mulally (North Carolina; Frameworks Racing), Dante Silva (California; Canyon Cllctv) and Abby Hogie (Germany; Beyond Racing).
Aaron Gwin (California; Intense Factory Racing) was an automatic qualifier, but declined his position because of injury.
Meanwhile, junior downhill riders Ryan Pinkerton (California; GT Factory Racing) and Riley Miller (Vermont; Killington Mountain School) have both landed on the podium at Val di Sole and Leogang, respectively. They’ll be joined by Nate Kitchen (California; KHS Factory Team), Evan Medcalf (Albuquerque; Commencal USA), Gavin Tomlinson (California), Taylor Ostgaard (Washington; Transition Factory Racing) and Abby Ronca (Pennsylvania; The Gravity Academy) in the junior races.
