(July 28, 2019 – WINTER PARK, Colorado) – Saturday saw the Pro Cross-Country titles contested at the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships. For the first year since 2017 we saw two new Elite National Champions crowned with Chloe Woodruff (Prescott, Ariz.; Stans NoTubes-Pivot) and Keegan Swenson (Park City, Utah; Stans NoTubes-Pivot) taking the titles.
In the Women’s Race, Woodruff immediately went off the front joined by an unexpected competitor in U.S. Pro National Road Race Champion, Ruth Winder (Boulder, Colo.; Trek-Segafredo) quickly gaining a 35 second gap on the field through the first lap. A crash in the middle of the second lap caused Winder to withdraw from the race but Woodruff pushed on. She crossed the line at 1:47.01, one minute and 16 seconds faster than silver medalist Evelyn Dong (Heber City, Utah; Stan’s NoTubes). Two-Time Olympian Lea Davison (Jericho, Vt.; Sho-Air TWENTY20) rounded out the podium to take the bronze medal.
“I went to the front and just set a sustained pace. There was kind of a big group there, and I wanted to break it up a little bit, and whittle it down to just myself and someone else if possible, or hopefully just myself. I just didn’t want that big of a group going into the last lap,” Swenson said about the big move he and Howard Grotts (Durango, Colo.; Specialized) made with two laps to go, pulling away from a group of six. Swenson would finish in a time of 1:50:26, and Grotts would finish 29-seconds behind him to take the second step of the podium. In third was Russell Finterwald (Colorado Springs, Colo.; Clif Pro Team) who finished in a time of 1:52:08.
Complete Results for the day’s races can be found here: https://legacy.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2019&id=21
