The cycling team placed third at the USA Cycling Collegiate Track Racing National Championships at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this past weekend.
Cycling coach Charlie Zamastil said they went in expecting to do pretty well, considering they had been in the top five for the last four years. He added this was their first time to have this many different types of medals and to have a freshman medal, but it wasn’t their first year to place third.
“I’m chuffed to bits,” Zamastil said. “Everyone went above and beyond expectations.”
The team this year consisted of seven freshman, two sophomores, and one graduate student – a total of 10 cyclists.
“The competition was a lot stronger this year,” Zamastil said, noting that the team placed behind Marian University out of Indianapolis and Fort Lewis College out of Durango, Colorado.
He explained later in an email that the competition across the board was a lot stronger from not only Midwestern State, but all the other schools as well. Zamastil said the average speeds for all the timed events were higher and the winners for those events had finished several second faster than the cyclists who raced on the same track two years ago.
Some of the highlights for the individual races included: Hannah Ross, MSU graduate, taking second in the individual pursuit, the men’s team taking third, Joshua Buchel, accounting freshman, getting third in the one kilo time trial, the co-ed team taking second, along with many other accomplishments.
The coach and the cyclists agree that the reason for them accomplishing so much this season already has been because of the bonding of the cyclists outside of practice.
“We are more of a unit and a family this year,” exercise physiology sophomore Garrison Horton said. “It was pretty wild, I think we went into it expecting to do good, but not as good as we actually wound up doing.”
Horton even said he felt the team this year has better chemistry than in the past years when some people just didn’t mix together.
“Previous groups of MSU racers have been talented, but with that talent came a few out-sized and selfish personalities that caused riffs between teammates,” Zamstil said in an email.
Zamastil even stated over an email that he felt that this year’s team was “a young group, a brand new group of caring people with plenty of time to achieve individual success while still working for the team as a whole.”
Buchel said, “When it comes down to the race, we would sacrifice our own wins for the better of the team.” Meaning that at the end of the day if it meant deciding between a personal victory or victory for the team, they would chose the team.
Buchel went on to explain how the team participates in things like team dinners and just hanging out together at each other’s places. He said that them bonding together helped create less team rivalries and more of a unit.
“Coach Charlie is proud of all of us working so well together. Overall Coach Charlie is pretty proud with our performance so far,” Buchel said.
This year’s team has a lot of talent on it, but so has past teams. With talent usually comes a big amount of confidence, leading to ego issues and rivalries in the team. Zamastil said that a big difference between this years team and past teams is that this years team can put their egos aside for the sake of the team.
“They all worked together, they all had one goal as a team, and they would sacrifice for the good of the team. The team all likes each other and they ride unselfishly,” Zamastil said.
Even when the cyclists don’t race together, they still go and support each other. In the nationals last weekend, Horton said he went to support his teammates and get P.R. He got two medals as well, he came second in team sprint and the bronze medal for the team overall.
“I think I did okay with cheering on my teammates,” Horton said.
During the spring semester and into summer Zamastil went to work on acquiring additional cyclists from across the world to race for MSU through scholarship. Joshua Buchel, Maxyna Cottam, fine arts major, Craig Abrahams, education major, Bill Ash, business major, and Pablo Cruz, exercise physiology major all have one thing in common. They’re all freshmen, and they’re all national level athletes.
“They’re bringing a wealth of experience, [to the team] Josh [Joshua] has competed at junior worlds,” Zamastil said. “Pablo spent many years on the track and has support from the Honduran federation, Maxyna’s been New Zealand junior national champion before, and has also competed at worlds.”
Zamastil said they next compete in the mountain bike national championships in Snowshoe Mountain, Colorado, Oct. 25-27. He said they don’t have nearly as big of a mountain biking team, so they don’t have any goals so far as team performances go, but hopes for some strong individual performances.
Additional reporting by Jake Lanoux