With Olympics Looming, Cyclists Face Uphill Battle In Seattle
The Olympic cycling road racing trials start today in Seattle and both coaches and riders look for the opening race to feature major jockeying for position as teams try to get one of their riders on the Olympic squad.
The racers face 126 miles up and down two major hills that one rider likened to riding to the top of nearby 14,411-foot Mount Rainier, which racers will be able to see on a clear day.
The Seattle race is the first of three trials to pick a road cycling team for the Olympic Games in Atlanta this summer. The second race is May 26 in Pittsburgh and the final race June 1 in Charlotte, N.C.
Points accumulated in the trials will be used to select two men and one woman for an Olympic road-racing team of five men and three women. The remaining members will be chosen by Olympic team coaches.
One rider, Lance Armstrong, already has qualified for the team by virtue of his No. 11 ranking in the world.
Armstrong is the 1993 World Professional Champion and won last week’s Tour DuPont on the East Coast. The 1996 Olympics are the first in which professional cyclists are eligible.
The Seattle and Pittsburgh courses are tough courses with major hills, while the Charlotte trials will be on a course similar to the Olympic course at Atlanta, a more rolling rather than steep course.
New York’s finest
When it comes to swimming, Columbia University does not generally get mentioned among the great college programs. But the Lions have lured one of the nation’s best Olympic medal hopes in the pool to their campus at the top of Manhattan Island.
Christina Teuscher, the winner of the 200-meter freestyle at the Olympic trials in March, has selected Columbia over such swimming powers as Stanford, Southern California and Southern Methodist.
It’s not certain that Teuscher will swim for the Lions.
But matriculating at the New York City school will enable her to keep training with coach John Collins at the Badger Swim Club in New Rochelle, N.Y., a half-hour drive away.
Money matter
With only two months remaining before the Olympics, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games has no further room to maneuver if expenses run too high or revenues come in too low. ACOG still has about $160 million more to raise, and expects to make it largely on remaining ticket and souvenir sales through the games.
It is unclear what would happen if ACOG ended up in the red after the Olympics, though organizers have vowed they will not seek a government bailout by taxpayers.