U.S. Has a Mountain to Climb: MCCONNELOUG’s GOAL: REVIVE MOUNTAIN BIKING
By Elliott Almond, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Apr. 11–The result hardly registered a whisper on the mountain-biking scene, but for Mary McConneloug it represented a breakthrough.
The 2004 Olympian from Fairfax won the mud-splattered time trial Friday at the Sea Otter Classic at Laguna Seca. In doing so, she defeated defending Olympic champion Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa of Norway, who has dominated women’s mountain biking in much the way Lance Armstrong has the Tour de France.
McConneloug, 34, hopes the performance leads to a revival of American success in this sport born on Mount Tamalpais. Like men’s beach volleyball, basketball and perhaps even baseball, mountain biking is a homegrown sport in which U.S. dominance is waning.
The United States has won one Olympic medal in mountain biking, in 1996, when Susan DeMattei of San Rafael took bronze in cross-country. McConneloug, a Santa Clara University graduate, wants to end the drought at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
“I’m always training with Gunn-Rita in my mind,” she said. “Here is this native Marinite digging back to the roots.”
McConneloug, ninth at the 2004 Olympics, is one of the few Americans competing on the World Cup circuit instead of in national races. The International Cycling Union, the sport’s governing body, does not hold a World Cup event in the United States, so it is rare to see stars such as Dahle Flesjaa compete here.
“We invented the sport, but we didn’t invent the racing,” said Alison Dunlap, the 2001 world champion and a two-time Olympian. “Our kids just don’t grow up dreaming of being bike racers.”
A handful of the world’s best mountain bikers who competed at the Sea Otter last weekend cited Europe’s cultural connection to cycling as the major reason Americans have been left behind. Europeans often start in junior road-race events, where they learn tactics and build training bases that carry over to mountain biking. Most Americans don’t learn about racing until they are college-aged.
“Right there, we’re 20 years behind,” Dunlap said.
It showed at the Sea Otter. Dahle Flesjaa won the overall women’s title, followed by 1996 Olympic silver medalist Alison Sydor of Canada and McConneloug. Jean Christoph Peraud of France won the men’s division, followed by riders from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, Spain and Australia; the first American, Matt Kelly, was seventh.
Although U.S. mountain bike fortunes have suffered, American road racing has never been stronger, thanks to the success of Armstrong. The shift has affected mountain biking because more attention is now given to the road. American mountain bike races offer little prize money, meaning only a few can eke out livings.
McConneloug and her partner, racer Michael Broderick, live in a van. They plan to rent an RV this season to travel the European World Cup circuit.
Georgia Gloud, a rider on the rise from Ketchum, Idaho, works part-time as a cook. The Luna team racer was fourth overall at the Sea Otter, marking her first podium finish at a major event.
The fact major bike makers such as Specialized, of Morgan Hill, and Ritchey, of San Carlos, are located in the Bay Area has not seemed to matter.
Scot Nicol, a racing pioneer and creator of Ibis bicycles of Santa Rosa, said the best way to develop American talent is to get kids on bicycles. “We’re fighting golf and Nintendo,” he said.
The idea is working in Switzerland, one of the strongest mountain biking countries. McConneloug competed at the Swiss Cup national series a few years ago, where scores of youngsters competed.
“By the time they are 18 they are rocking,” she said.
McConneloug, who started biking at 27 as an outdoor hobby, added, “No one pushed me other than myself.”
She was the only American to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in Athens because of a points system weighted toward World Cup races. McConneloug said the American series didn’t offer enough prize money to receive international sanctions.
“Our mountain biking became this globe of its own,” she said.
Dunlap said the lack of Olympic qualifiers in 2004 has haunted American racing. Sponsors, she said, are afraid to take a chance after the dismal showing.
Ned Overend, who dominated the sport in the 1980s and early ’90s, isn’t sure anything can change that.
“It’s cycling in the United States,” said Overend, 50, who finished fifth at last year’s national championships. “It will remain a niche sport.”
Contact Elliott Almond at ealmond@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5865.
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Copyright (c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
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