Gaining Ground on the Pack : Curtis on a Roll After Late Start in Track Cycling

At an age when many bicycle racers apply the brakes to their careers, 37-year-old Tana Curtis has just started pedaling.

In fact, Curtis couldn’t use her brakes if she wanted to--her track bike isn’t equipped with them.

The Reseda resident began racing 12 months ago and quickly found that she was much older than most of her competition.

“Often, when there are three of us in a race, the collective ages of the two girls that I’m racing against are less than mine,” Curtis said.

But it didn’t take long for her to get herself in gear and catch up with the pack.

“Anything I mention to her she corrects immediately,” said Rick Denman, the U.S. Olympic Festival men’s coach.

“In a short time, Tana has developed a wealth of technical know-how that took me 10 years to pick up.”

Curtis feels that her ancestry is at the hub of her success as a racer. A grandfather and grandmother were Olympic swimming coaches who taught the likes of Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe.

“I have the instinct and I have the competitiveness that I find you are born with. It’s that quicksilver in someone that says ‘I’m going to go all out no matter what.’ ”

Although she is not the fastest rider on the velodrome track, Curtis’ tactical skills helped her to place 5th in the 7-Eleven Dominguez Hills Grand Prix Series’ miss-and-out competition and 4th in the match sprints competition of the Southern California and Nevada District Championships.

The only regret she has is that she got such a late start in racing.

“If I had started this earlier, I would have had a good chance of being serious Olympic material.”

For now, however, Curtis is concerned with other riders’ Olympic chances--she coaches young riders with the Amateur Athletic Assn.

“I love watching someone discover something new in life and with that discovery find something new in themselves. There’s no reward like it.”