The Dartmouth cycling team concluded its season at the 2010 Collegiate Cycling National Championships last weekend in Madison, Wis. The team finished fourth overall in the Division 2 Team Omnium after strong performances from its female riders.
Ariel Filiberti '11 won the Division 2 Women's Individual Omnium, finishing first in both the National Criterium race and the Road Race. She won the Criterium race with a time of 43:47.6 and posted a 3:28:46 in the road race.
Teammates Elle Anderson '11 and Claire McKenna '10 also contributed to the Big Green's success. Anderson finished fifth in the Individual Omnium after coming in fourth in the Road Race with a time of 3:29:37 and 11th in Criterium. McKenna claimed sixth place in the Criterium with a time of 44:55.2 and finished three seconds behind Anderson in the Road Race for a 12th place finish.
In the time trial, the Dartmouth women led and were poised to win when a crash cost the team valuable time. The women were unable to recover and wound up finishing in 3rd 25 seconds behind first place Whitman College.
On the men's side, Matthew Nichols '13 led the Big Green and finished 35th in the Division 2 Nationals Criterium. Teammates Trevor Eide, a fourth year medical student, and Patrick Carter, a second year graduate student, also helped the Big Green place fourth overall.
"We are a really small school and we were just so excited that we got medals and the whole team got to stand up on the podium," Anderson said. "We finished the season stronger than we had hoped."
The team qualified for nationals after a strong season in the Eastern Region.
"We were really excited to go into nationals because we had a really good team and sent more people than usual," Anderson said. "We had three women and three men qualify to go. Other years it can be just one or two people, so we were really excited because we had so much participation. That was good for the team trials because we had two full team trial teams, and for the road race it's very helpful to have teammates around you and support you to help you with the tactical things."
The team will continue to work in the offseason, as several members will compete in non-collegiate races over the summer. Anderson said the team hopes to return to nationals next year despite graduating four of the riders who competed at nationals.
