MIDWESTERN STATE WINS TWO NATIONAL CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Two Midwestern State cyclists won national titles over the weekend at USA Cycling’s Collegiate National Road Cycling Championships.

 
Alex Boyd

 Freshman Alex Boyd won Saturday’s 84-mile road race in 90-degree heat. He rode away from a breakaway group with four other riders that had amassed a two-minute lead on the field and rode solo for the last 17 miles of the race.

 

“We were working together pretty well until the gap came down to about 30 seconds, so I decided to go by myself,” Boyd said. “I’ve never won a national title before and I’ve been racing since I was 12, so this ranks up there as one of my biggest results.”

The next morning, Natalie Klemko, also a MSU freshman, attacked the women’s criterium field, which was still intact, with five laps left  in the race. She quickly built a lead of approximately 20 seconds and held off a last-lap surge to ride across the finish line alone to win the hour-long race on streets adjacent to the University of Kansas campus.

 

The efforts by Boyd and Klemko highlighted a solid effort by the 10-rider MSU squad at nationals. The Mustangs finished fourth overall among 45 schools competing in Division 1.

 “Natalie and Alex’s wins are a credit to their incredible talent and all of the hard work that they put into this sport every day,” said MSU Coach Gary Achterberg. “The rest of the team also deserves credit. In both Alex’s and Natalie’s races, they had teammates who did lots of work back in the field to seal those victories.”

 

MSU’s women’s team time trial team of Klemko, Sheri Jordan, Ivana Miucic and Laura Whittle also earned a podium spot with their fourth-place finish in Friday’s team time trial competition. The Mustangs finished 25 seconds behind winner Fort Lewis University. MSU’s men finished 12th in the team time trial.

 

Others competing for MSU were Adam Biwan, Mitch Comardo, Jarred Gilker, Kip Spaude and Tiffany Stewart. The team was supported by Achterberg, team manager Michael Baldwin and mechanic Jarvis Polvado, owner of Texoma Cycling Center.

Boyd also finished 14th in Sunday’s criterium. His combined points from the two individual events earned him the third-place medal in the men’s individual omnium. Klemko finished 16th in Saturday’s road race, earning her the fifth-place podium spot in the women’s individual omnium.

 
Natalie Klemko

Saturday’s road race posed a challenge for the race organizers as well as the athletes. Steady rain a week ago left a portion of the original course under five feet of water, forcing a last-minute diversion that included a stretch of gravel road. That took many riders out of the race with flats that the neutral wheel support struggled to service. Two of MSU’s men and one of its women did not finish the race due to flats on the gravel portion of the course.



This weekend’s national titles are the 20th  and 21st earned by Midwestern in the nearly 20-year history of the program. They are the third and fourth during the 2006-07 school year. Aaron Kacala, also a freshman, earned two first-place medals in the collegiate national track championships last September in Indianapolis.

 

This is the first time a Midwestern rider has won the men’s road race since 1994, when the championships were conducted in Wichita Falls. The last time MSU won the women’s criterium was in 2003 in Berkeley, Calif.

 

When they are not racing for Midwestern, Boyd is a member of USA Cycling’s national development squad, VMG Racing, and Klemko races for the Advil-ChapStick women’s cycling team.

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