By Steve Medcroft in Providence Elite men - Trebon makes it look easy Ryan Trebon (Kona) surged off...
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Ryan Trebon(Image credit: Russ & Nancy Wright)
On top of the podium Katie Compton (Spike Shooter/Primus Mootry)(Image credit: Mark Legg)
Jessie Anthony (Clif Bar)(Image credit: Dave McElwaine/trailwatch.net)
Summerhill with the win.(Image credit: Ed Collier)
By Steve Medcroft in Providence
Elite men - Trebon makes it look easy
Ryan Trebon (Kona) surged off the front in the first lap of the men's elite race at the California Giant Berry USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships and never looked back. Hunted by a chase group containing three-time national champion Jonathan Page (Cervelo/Hot Tubes), two-time national champion Todd Wells (GT/Hyundai), seven-time national champion Tim Johnson (Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com), Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly) and Barry Wicks (Kona), Trebon built his lead to more than 30 seconds by the final lap and safely collected his second national championship jersey of the season (Trebon earned the US MTB National Championships in Sonoma, California earlier this year in similar fashion).
Trebon led the 133 elite riders from the start. "The day was perfect," he said at the awards ceremony. "There were a lot of (spectators), the weather was great, the course was in really good shape. I didn't think I would get a gap that fast. I just kept seeing (the other riders) floating away."
Katie Compton (Spike/Primus Mootry) won her third consecutive cyclo-cross national championship jersey after a dominating solo effort on Sunday. Compton took an immediate lead of the women's California Giant Berry Farms USA Cyclocross National Championships in Providence, Rhode Island and left a string of talented, powerful women racers in her wake. Only 2006 US MTB national champion Georgia Gould (Luna Chix) had an answer for Compton's pace, dangling thirty seconds behind the former track national champion and Paralympics gold medalist on her own for most of the race.
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Although the way she won mirrored her last two 'cross nationals efforts (2004, 2005), Compton credits the mild weather and pristine course conditions for her success. "I won't say (the course conditions) made it easy," she said at the finish, "but they made it less hard. It was nice to have an open course. I was able to pick my lines and ride my pace."
Every woman in the field had to know Compton would apply immediate and devastating pressure. Yet only Gould was able to stay on Compton's wheel in the first lap of the race. "I had a good start," Gould said at the podium presentation. "I got the hole shot. But I just didn't have the legs I was hoping for."
Jesse Anthony (Team Clifbar) convincingly re-claimed the national championship jersey he has worn six times previously in Saturday's California Giant Berry Farms USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships U-23 Men's race. In a tough, 51-rider field, Anthony, who had won a cyclo-cross national championship jersey every year for six years in a row until Troy Wells took it away from him in 2005, first broke away with former junior national champion Jamey Driscoll (FiordiFrutta).
But Driscoll faded from the lead he built with Anthony, leaving the Beverly, Massachusetts native alone for the win. Driscoll fell back with chasers Morgan Schmitt (Hagens-Berman Cycling) and recently upgraded Elite Junior Bjorn Selander (Alan Factory Team). "I just blew up," a disappointed Driscoll said at the finish line. Unable to match Schmitt and Selander's aggression in the closing laps, Driscoll settled for fourth on the day.
Danny Summerhill (TIAA-CREF/Clif Bar) successfully defended his Elite Junior national championship jersey Saturday morning in Providence, Rhode Island. After a strong first lap in the California Giant Berry Farms USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships, only Ethan Gilmour (Coyote Hill) was able to hold on to Summerhill's wheel. But the Boulder, Colorado junior was able to drop even Gilmour and won the race after leading pole to pole.
In fact, the only threat to a Summerhill win was the rider's own mental slip in the early going. "I had a pretty good bobble going in that first lap," he said at the finish. Unable to clip out of a pedal while dismounting for the first barrier, the rider went down. Summerhill says the bobble unnerved him, reminding him of a late-race collision in the 2005 race with now U23 rider Bjorn Selander (Alan Factory Team) that decided the final outcome. So focused on gaining and holding the lead in the race, Summerhill says he wasn't even aware of which rider was holding his wheel. "I couldn't tell you (how I got away), I just remember looking back and he wasn't there anymore."
