Craig, U.S. team settle for eighth-place finish

TRENTINO, Italy – The U.S. National Team was hoping to repeat last year’s medal-winning performance in the ream relay competition on Tuesday’s opening day of competition at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships but had to settle for an eighth-place finish.

The foursome of Georgia Gould, John Bennett, Sam Jurekovic and Exeter native Adam Craig worked as a tag team to tackle the rain-soaked course in the Italian Alps.

The team relay features four laps of the cross country circuit contested by an elite male, elite female, U23 male and junior male from each nation. The team’s bronze-medal-winning performance in 2007 at Fort William, Scotland, was the United States’ best performance since the event was added to the world championship program in 1999.

With teams allowed to determine the start order of its representatives, the U.S. squad chose to open with Gould as Slovakia was the only other nation that did not opt to start with either its elite (Craig) or U23 (Jurekovic) male competitor.

Fittingly, the U.S. completed the first lap in 19th place with Gould besting the Slovakian junior and putting the U.S. squad 4:48 behind the leading French whose Jean-Christophe Peraud completed the first lap in 19:55. Gould’s lap time of 24:43 was the sixth fastest amongst the elite women.

Bennett, the U.S. squad’s junior male entry, took the handoff from Gould and moved the U.S. up two spots to 17th place at the contest’s midway point.

Bennett rode a 24:33 which ranked 16th amongst all riders on the second leg of the relay.

National Development Team rider Jurekovic took over on the third lap and was able to make up a several spots, but after 75 percent of the race was over the U.S. team still sat in 13th place.

Craig was able to make up five spots in the final leg, and outsprinted Alexander Wetterhall of Sweden to the line to to give the United States its eighth-place finish.

The American team completed the event with an overall time of 1:30:12, 5:27:52 off the pace of the gold-medal-winning French squad.

“It was a shorter, much more technical course this year and all the mud out there made it harder for anyone to gain much ground,” said Marc Gullickson,

USA Cycling’s National Mountain Bike Development Director. “The down hills were extremely muddy and technical, forcing riders to slow their descents.”

Craig’s next world championships competition will come Sunday in the elite men?s cross country race as he seeks to lock down a berth on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team.