The U.S. Olympic Committee announced today the winners of the Best of January Honors for Team USA. In the team category, the USA Cycling’s Men’s Team Pursuit Squad’s standout performance at the Hong Kong World Cup won them the category, defeating Men’s Rugby and Fencing.
The Team Pursuit squad of Ashton Lambie (Lincoln, Neb.), Gavin Hoover (Manhattan Beach, Calif.), Eric Young (Geneva, Ill.) and Colby Lange (Vail Valley, Colo.) earned the second fastest time during their qualifying round with a time of 3:54.358, less than one second off of their National Record which was set at altitude in August, putting them in contention for the Gold Medal round. After swapping Hoover for Danny Summerhill (Centennial, Colo.) going into the finals, Young, Lange, Summerhill, and Lambie clocked a 3:59.215 to earn the silver medal, marking the best finish for the U.S. Men’s Team Pursuit in over a decade.
“The Men’s Team Pursuit squad has taken some tremendous steps forward in the last 6 months and have really opened some eyes in the last two World Cups,” said Jeff Pierce, USA Cycling’s Director of Elite Athletics, Road and Track, “They have truly come together as a team broken through some long standing barriers. There are still countless hours of work to be done to achieve our Olympic goals but all I can say now is watch out for these guys! They smashed through the 4 minute mark at sea level with a 3 :56 at the Cambridge New Zealand World Cup then bettered that a week later in Hong Kong with a 3:54 putting themselves into the gold medal ride in the process. Those are world class times and there is certainly more to come.”
The Men’s Team Pursuit will finish their season with the 2019 UCI Track World Championships set to take place in in Pruszkow, Poland February 27-March 3, 2019.
The last cyclist to earn this honor was paracyclist Joe Berenyi in March of 2016.
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For more information, please e-mail Kelly Fox at apalermo@usacycling.org.
