The final names of the United States' cycling team for the Beijing Olympic Games were announced Thursday by USA Cycling. Joining Kristin Armstrong on the women's road team will be Amber Neben, in her first Olympic Games, and Christine Thorburn, who represented her country in Athens in 2004. Mary McConneloug was named to join the women's mountain bike team alongside Georgia Gould.
All three athletes earned discretionary selections and were nominated to the team by a nine-person selection committee.
It as also confirmed that Sarah Hammer will contest both the individual pursuit, for which she automatically qualified and the points race on the track
Neben will contest the road race alongside Thorburn and Kristin Armstrong. Currently ranked ninth in the world, Neben is one of the most decorated American cyclists on the international circuit. Over the course of the last three years, she's either won or placed in most major UCI races across Europe.
Thorburn will compete in both the road race and the individual time trial in Beijing. After finishing just out of the medals in Athens four years ago with a fourth-place finish in the race against the clock, Thorburn has consistently been one of the United States' top international performers in both events.
McConneloug will join Georgia Gould on the two-woman cross country mountain bike squad. Currently the highest-ranked American in the world in 10th, McConneloug was the third-best American at the 2008 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships last month with a 20th-place finish.
