USA Cycling announced on Tuesday that they have awarded grants as part of the Catlin Fund to aspiring track athletes Megan Jastrab and Kendall Ryan to help support their goals of making the team for the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The fund honours the legacy of three-time world champion and 2016 Olympic silver medallist Kelly Catlin, who died in 2019.
Jastrab, 19, won the title in the 2019 UCI World Road Championships junior race and rainbow jerseys in the Junior Track World Championships in the Omnium and Madison. She signed with Team DSM for the road season. She raced her first elite Track World Championships in 2020, racing the Madison with Jennifer Valente to ninth place.
Ryan, 28, raced on the road with Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank since 2011 but started out on the track as a junior, where she won the national title in the points race. She picked up track racing again with an eye on Tokyo and won a bronze medal at the 2019 Track World Cup in Brisbane with Christina Birch.
Both riders are part of USA Cycling's long team for Tokyo and are training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for the Madison and Team Pursuit.
The USA qualified spots for six riders for track cycling at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, five for endurance events and one in the sprint events.
Chloe Dygert, Valente, Emma White, and Lily Williams earned automatic places on the long team after winning the team pursuit in the 2020 Track World Championships. Sprinters Maddie Godby and Mandy Marquardt, and Ryan, Jastrab and Birch also earned automatic nominations to the long team.
