Cyclist’s Big Race
Elkins resident, 16, to compete in Europe
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Elkins resident Alyssa White is a member of the USA Junior Women's Cyclocross Team.
ELKINS -- Elkins resident Alyssa White, 16, will be one of only five athletes from the United States to compete in her age group at the upcoming Union Cycliste Internationale World Championship Cyclocross.
White was selected to be a part of the USA Junior Women's Cyclocross Team last year and will travel to the Czech Republic for the UCI event in February. White will compete in the 17-18 year-old age group.
"I'm definitely hoping for a good showing at the World Championship," White told The Inter-Mountain this week. "I would really like to finish in the Top 10 and hopefully be the top American finisher in the race."
Cyclocross is a unique discipline of cycling that is a cross between road cycling, mountain biking and steeplechase. As part of the event, cyclists frequently dismount their bikes to run up stairs and steep embankments. Race competitors are often also required to dismount their bikes and hop fences in rough terrain.
"Cyclocross is a mixture of biking and a little bit of running," White, who is home-schooled, said. "There's barriers that you run over and super steep hills that you have to go up. And a lot of the time it gets super muddy during the races and that's when it is a lot of fun."
Close to 60 competitors from around the world will be battling it out for the Junior Women's Cyclocross Championship, which will take place in the town of Tabor on Feb. 3.
This won't be White's first trek to another country for competition, however, as she competed in European Junior World Cup events this past November and December. White, who was selected to Team USA after strong performances in several American races last fall, competed against the world's best in France, Ireland and Belgium during the Junior World Cup.
"It was a whole new level from racing in America," White said about competing at the Junior World Cup. "The courses were muddy and very technical, and the girls over there were super good and super competitive. Cycling over there is as popular as football in the United States."
White, who is currently ranked eighth in the World Cup Junior Series, has been racing competitively since she was 8 years old. With a lack of Cyclocross races locally, White began to travel out of state for a bulk of her competition. She captured second place at the USA Nationals last year.
"There's not a lot of races locally, so I had to compete in Maryland and Virginia a lot," she said. "But I've also raced in several other places in the United States, like Arizona and Arkansas."
White said watching her father, Jeff, compete in triathlons peaked her interest in competing in Cyclocross.
"My dad was into competing in triathlons and after watching him I started biking myself," she said. "We eventually started riding together and after a while I started competing."
Being on Team USA and competing in the World Championship is the highest level of competition for a junior competitor, White said.
"In order for Alyssa to move any higher after this would be her qualifying for the Olympics," said Tonya White, Alyssa's mother. "It's really a big accomplishment for her to be competing at the worlds, because they only take five girls in the whole United States. She's just done really well and worked so hard to get to this point."
Anyone wishing to watch White compete in the UCI World Championship Cyclocross race on Feb. 3 can do so online at www.flobikes.com.
For more information about the race, visit www.uci.org,