BikeRide.com Cycling Blog

Today ESPN.com has released the 5th part in their series So You Wanna Be An Olympian. The series follows journalist Kathryn Bertine as she tries to find a sport where she can possibly earn a spot in the 2008 Summer Olympics. ESPN explain the premise of the series …

Just how hard is it to make the U.S. Olympic team? Does it require a lifetime of training and devotion? Would an average person with an athletic background have any shot at all?

E-ticket will find out the answers over the next two years. We’ve tapped Kathryn Bertine, a former ice skater, professional triathlete and accomplished author, to see whether she can somehow find her way to Beijing in 2008. In what sport? Well, that’s what she’s trying to find out.

Bertine is 31 years old and has competed in figure stating at a national level when she was younger, and recently as a “pro” triathlete. Although triathlon is in the Olympics she was not at the top level in that sport. She tried a couple of sports like fencing and team handball, and then tried track cycling. She decided to focus on road cycling since that was her strongest event in the triathlon. In the current feature Bertine gets a Vo2 max text and it turns out her Vo2 max is 71 which is actually really good. I found that the highest recorded women’s Vo2 max is 77 by a cross country skier.

Bertine has started off doing pretty well this year in cycling races as a cat 4 and cat 3. You can see her race results on USA Cycling’s web site. She will have to stay on the fast track if she has any hope of being considered for the Olympics. According to the USA cycling selection criteria (PDF file) Only three women will make the road team, and the the U.S. already has some of the best cyclists in the world like Kristin Armstrong (another former triathlete).

Just to be considered for the final 3 riders she will need to qualify by placing in the World Championships this year, or accumulating enough points in UCI races to make “the long team” of 8 riders.

Nomination to Women’s 2008 Olympic Road Long Team:

Any U.S. eligible riders placing in the top-three (3) of the 2007
UCI Elite Women’s World Road Race or Time Trial Championships,
Stuttgart GER, Sep 26 – 30, 2007, will be named to the 2008
Women’s Olympic Road Long Team.

The top-5 ranked U.S. eligible female riders on the final UCI
Individual Road Point rankings as of December 31, 2007 will be
named to the 2008 Women’s Olympic Road Long Team.

If positions remain after the Automatic Nomination process,
USAC Coaches may choose remaining riders to fill the Long Team
based on USAC Principles of Discretion (Section II) and subject to
review and approval of the USA Cycling Selection Committee (see
Section I.E.).

Since Bertine is not yet on a UCI team and eligible to do UCI races, her only real shot is to win the National Time Trial Championship and then finish top three in the worlds. The problem is that even winning the National Time Trial may not be enough to earn a spot at the Worlds unless the selection criteria has changed since 2006 …

Elite Women Time Trial
Eligible Participants: USAC International License Holders; Age 19 and over
Maximum Start Positions: 2
Athletes will receive automatic nominations to the team based on the following prioritized criteria:

1. Any athlete placing in the top three (3) at the prior year’s World Championships in the same event and category. In order to maintain their position on the Team, the eligible athlete(s) must continue to demonstrate the ability to finish in the top 3 at the World Championships
   during the current racing season. This evaluation will be based on results from major international competition and current ranking on the appropriate UCI Individual Classification.
2. The winner of the 2006 National Time Trial Championships provided the race is held in its entirety and run under UCI regulations.

Since in 2006 Kristin Armstrong was first and Christine Thorburn third at Worlds they would automatically take the two start positions in the Worlds Time Trial taking priority over the winner of Nationals. With the two start positions in the time trial pretty much locked up, she would have to show great ability in the road race, and given that she will probably not have any international race experience this season it is really not a possibility. She would basically have come out of nowhere to be better that two of the current top two women in the world.

One interesting note is that last year I did the bike leg of the New York City Triathlon as a member of a relay team. Bertine also did this race, so I can get an idea for her cycling ability. I’m 39 years old and about 30 lbs overweight and I did the 40K course in 1:04:48 compared to Bertine’s time of 1:13:54. Sure she had to save something for the run, but I would expect an Olympic level female cyclist to go faster than me. She was only the 15th fastest bike split of the pro women.

I wish Kathryn the best of luck, and I hope she can prove me wrong. It is nice that cycling will get a little more mainstream sports coverage because of this which is good, but I guess I’m not sure if cyclists should be offended that cycling was selected as the best possible chance for an average person to make the Olympics. I hope Bertine and the other editors at ESPN see that there are some very talented and dedicated athletes in the sport of cycling.

Some other headlines …

• Triathlete setting sights on Olympics trials in cycling (Tucson Citizen)