USA Cycling Annouces Nominees for the 2008 World Championships

While our server issues are being resolved, I've had a lot of time to surf the web and find intriguing things to Blog. Here's a good one. Today USA Cycling announced the nominees for the World Championships that will take place next month in Val di Sole, Italy. There are only two women downhillers on the list, which is a bit surprising. Hopefully, this is just the list of riders who were nominated and not the final list of athletes who will be attending. It's a bit confusing because in the instructions for applying for the Worlds team on USAC's website, it says that today's date is the "Confirmation to Participate" and that the "Announcement of the Team" happens June 9, 2008. The write-up on USA Cycling's site doesn't imply that more riders will be named, though. As the top US rider in both mountaincross and downhill, Melissa Buhl will represent in both disciplines. Kathy Pruitt, who has been committed to the World Cup circuit this year will be the second downhiller, while mountaincross extraordinaire Neven Steinmetz will join Melissa in that discipline.

I understand that results and petitions rule the selection process, and the ability to pay one's own way determines whether or not a petition is submitted in the first place, but can we really only send two girls to Worlds? And that's two girls per discipline, which totals just three people. I hope that consideration was given to riders like Darian Harvey, Lisa Myklak, Abby Hippely, and Jackie Harmony, and that on June 9, we'll see a few more names on the list.

Elite Women’s Downhill
Melissa Buhl (Chandler, Ariz.)
Kathy Pruitt (Lake Almanor, Calif.)

Elite Women’s 4-Cross
Melissa Buhl (Chandler, Ariz.)
Neven Steinmetz (Boulder. Colo.)
Jessica Vogt (Boulder, Colo.)*
*Declined her nomination

To read the whole USAC article, click here.