U.S. Olympic Cycling Trials : Men’s Heats Today; Women’s Coach Impressed by Attitude

SPOKANE, Wash. — The U.S. Olympic road cycling trials, being run simultaneously with the national championships, resume today with three qualifying heats for the men to narrow the field to the top 120 riders. There are no qualifying heats for the women.

Sunday, the men and women will ride the Wild Rose Prairie course north of Spokane, 105 miles for the men and 58 miles for the women.

Next Tuesday and Thursday, both the men and women will ride a different course, a circuit of about four miles, similar to the course that will be used for the Olympic road race in Seoul in September.

Sue Novara-Reber, women’s national coaching director for the U.S. Cycling Federation, said Friday she likes the attitude of the riders on the team time trial squad.

Four of the women automatically qualified last Tuesday on the two winning two-woman teams. Another four will be selected shortly by the coaches for the “long” team for the World Championships in Belgium next month.

The coaches will use the results from last Sunday’s 40-kilometer individual time trial, Tuesday’s team racing with two riders and Thursday’s four-rider teams to make their four choices.

Last year’s women’s team won a silver medal in the World Championships in Vienna, losing to the Russians.

“I think we have a good chance to get the gold medal in the World Championships,” Novara-Reber said. “The girls are really focused on the event right now. Some of them tasted that silver medal last year, and they’re hungry for the gold.

“They’re not satisfied. I’m real happy about that. It’s easy to be satisfied with the silver medal in the World Championships because that in itself is a great feat. But they were only five seconds out of first and, boy, when you think about that for a whole year, it’s like a nightmare. It just keeps coming back to haunt you.”

Novara-Reber sees a big change in the quality of the women riders between 1984 and 1988.

“I think there are a lot of reasons why women’s cycling has really grown. Obviously, the exposure that we have gotten since the ’84 Games has helped. But we’ve got a lot of girls now that feel they have a legitimate chance and that has been enforced by more women’s sponsored teams,” she said.