By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The UCLA cycling team placed fourth out of 24 teams in the team
omnium with a good showing at the weekend’s Western Cycling
Conference Collegiate Championships, which earns them a spot at the
National Championships in three weeks.
The omnium is a compilation of points derived from finishes
throughout the season.
Only the top four finishers in the Western Conference are going
to Nationals, which will be held in Colorado Springs on May 19-21.
The Bruins finished behind UC Davis, Cal and Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo.
The first three spots were locks, but UCLA had to hold off UC
San Diego for the fourth spot.
“Even though (UCSD) won both A events, our team was
stronger overall and gained an insurmountable lead after the road
race,” Bruin team member David Bruno said.
The Team Time Trial and Road Race took place on Saturday. The
TTT was held over a 12.5-mile course with teams of four racing. The
UCLA Men’s A team (Elijah Pfister, Steve Flynn, Alex Smith,
Peter Brown) placed first, and the Men’s B team (Bruno, Pat
Schmidt, Nick McBride, Daniel Rojas) was second in its event.
In the Men’s B RR (66 miles), freshman Pat Schmidt placed
third, his best finish this season.
The Men’s A Road Race (88 miles with 6,000 feet of
climbing) came down to UCLA senior Steve Flynn and UCSD’s
Pete Knudsen, with Knudsen winning it by half a wheel.
“Steve really wanted to win,” Bruno said.
“This was the third time this season that a race came down to
him and another rider who beat him out in the sprint.”
Flynn will miss nationals, however, because he’s headed to
Europe with the national team to race for the next six weeks.
In that same race, graduate student Alex Smith overcame a flat
tire and crossed the line in fifth place a few minutes after
Flynn.
Smith also placed sixth in the crit, while Pfister won the field
sprint for 11th place.
In the individual omnium, Smith placed second overall. Flynn
came in sixth, and Pfister ended up eighth.
In the women’s crit, Leah Hoyer led for the bulk of the
race, but was cut off by a UC Davis rider and crashed with three
laps remaining.
“We knew our team was going to be very good this year
because we had more women racers than last year,” Bruno said.
“At the first race of the season, Erika Schwartz destroyed
all her competition and won every event, but the following week was
hit by a car and broke her neck. Luckily she survived and is
recovering.”
He added that if not for her accident, there was a good chance
the women could have won the team omnium.
This is the second year in a row the Bruins have qualified for
nationals. For the men, Pfister, Smith, Schmidt and Peter Brown are
going, and Bruno is an alternate. For the women, Hoyer and Melanie
Hamon qualified.
The last time any Bruin won a national championship was in 1995
when Lane Packwood won the men’s crit in Colorado.