Kansas City, Missouri - Defending Elite Men’s champion Tim Johnson (Middleton, Mass.) and Women’s Elite champion Katie Compton (Colorado Springs, Colo.) are among the nation’s best athletes ready to line up at this week’s USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships in Kansas City, Kan. Nearly 1,800 entries have been received for the 38 races between Thursday and Sunday at Kansas City’s Tiffany Springs Park. The complete event schedule and more information are available here at http://www.kccrossnationals.com.

Compton, of Colorado Springs, Colo., has won the past four women’s elite titles and was the silver medalist at the 2007 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships. Fresh off three top-five World Cup finishes, the 29-year-old is currently the number seven-ranked female cyclo-cross racer in the world, according to the latest UCI ratings. Her strongest competition in the 90-rider elite women’s field is expected to come from current USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Calendar standings leader and 2008 Olympian in the discipline of mountain biking Georgia Gould (Fort Collins, Colo./Luna). Another multi-discipline rider, road racing veteran, Laura Van Gilder (Cresco, Pa./c3 Sollay) will be looking to challenge a new discipline after much success on the domestic cyclo-cross scene this season and a top-20 World Cup finish. Last year’s runner-up Rachel Lloyd (Fairfax, Calif./California Giant Berry Farms-Specialized) will be looking to repeat her impressive performance, as will the currently fourth-ranked rider in the USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Calendar standings Maureen Bruno-Roy (Arlington, Mass./MM Racing-Seven Cycles).

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GREENVILLE, S.C. – The details about new courses for the Individual Time Trial and Road Race were unveiled today at a press conference by Medalist Sports and City of Greenville for the Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships, scheduled for August 30-31, 2008. This will be the third consecutive year that the dual championships for the best male cyclists in professional cycling will be held in the Upstate, with close to 80,000 spectators anticipated in the Upstate for Labor Day weekend.

Medalist Sports, the sports marketing agency licensed by USA Cycling, Inc. to manage the event, announced that a new 20.7-mile individual time trial will be hosted in Greenville by the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR). This individual time trial championship will take place on Saturday, August 30. The professional road race championship course will use a similar 110-mile circuit on Sunday, August 31 that incorporates downtown Greenville streets and parks and four laps over Paris Mountain, but will have a new start/finish line in the West End section of downtown. Also new for 2008 will be two days of “Stars and Stripes Challenge” recreational events for spectators, with net proceeds raised being donated to support cancer research, including the Greenville Hospital System Oncology Research Institute.

“The community has truly rallied around this event the past two years. The rider that wears the Stars and Stripes jersey will have truly earned this country’s premier cycling award and we will be proud to say it took place in our community,” said the honorable Knox H. White, Mayor of Greenville.

The new venue for the Professional Individual Time Trial Championship (ITT) will be held on a 6.9-mile closed course within the CU-ICAR facility in Greenville, approximately 12 miles from downtown Greenville. In the past two years, the ITT was held at The Cliffs Valley community in Travelers Rest, S.C. This year, the new ITT course for the “race of truth” will offer fans the unique opportunity to see all pro cyclists navigate three full laps. Similar to the past two years, the cyclists will race against the clock for 20.7 miles. At the start/finish area, spectators will enjoy a big screen TV to watch live action around the course with announcers calling the action and a hospitality venue in prime location of the course. The ITT was won the past two years by Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Chipotle) of Salt Lake City, UT, who averaged 28.88 miles per hour (46.48kph). Greenville hosted the first-ever ITT championship for US professionals in 2006.

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Colorado Springs, Colo. — USA Cycling announced today 21 of its 24 nominees to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team, including all 16 men’s athletes across the disciplines of road cycling, track cycling, mountain biking and bicycle motocross (BMX). Additionally, USA Cycling formally announced five automatic women’s nominees across the four Olympic disciplines of cycling.

Of the 21 athletes named on Tuesday, 12 earned automatic nominations under USA Cycling’s Olympic selection procedures, while nine additional athletes were nominated to the Olympic Team by a nine-person selection committee according to USA Cycling’s Principles of Discretion.

ROAD CYCLING
In the discipline of road cycling, a total of five men were nominated to the Olympic Team, while one automatic nomination to the women’s squad was announced.

On the men’s side, only one athlete earned an automatic nomination, while USA Cycling made four discretionary picks.

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