News for October 14

Report from Stone Mountain

From Mike Gladu at the Stone Mountain Olympic Velodrome, Atlanta, Georgia.


ACOG Atlanta Cycling Invitational Day One Cancelled

The inaugural event for 1996 Atlanta Olympic Velodrome was in a holding
pattern as a misting rain falls on the Stone Mountain venue until
organizers declared the first day cancelled at 1 pm local time. Scheduled
for a 9am start with flying 200 meter sprint qualifying, the program was on
indefinite hold until the rains stopped and the vinyl covers could come off
the surface. The persistently misty conditions have forced cancellation the
events for the day.

Eighty-one elite international competitors from 21 national teams remain on
hand for the three-day event that will christen the 250 meter outdoor
facility in a full Olympic-format program. Regional riders and paralympic
athletes will contest a program of mass-start exhibition races, bringing
the total to 125 and filling the schedule.

A great field is lined up for the competition consisting of sprints,
kilometer, individual and team pursuit and points race for the men, and
sprints (simplified format), pursuit and points for the women. Exhibition
events are the keirin, olympic sprint, miss & out and the unknown distance.

ACOG is the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, presenting the event
with USA Cycling as a part of Atlanta Sports '95, a series of national and
international Olympic-level sporting events featuring 22 sports and their
stars.

The sprinters:
Austria's Dietmar Muller, Canada's Tanya Dubnicoff and Curt Harnett, Pavel
Buran of the Czech Republic, Erica Salumae (Estonia) and Galina Enukhina
(Russia), USA's Connie Young, Marty Nothstein and Bill Clay, Italy's
Frederico Paris and Roberto Chiappa, France's Nathalie Lancien, Tomohiro
Kitagawa, Slovakia's Martin Hrbacek and Jaroslav Jerabek, Spain's David
Cabrero and Jose Antonio Escuredo, Trinidad & Tobago's Clint Grant and
Michael Phillips and the Ukraine's Eugeni Tourovsky.

Austria, France, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, Spain, Ukraine and the USA will
combat the team pursuit, individual pursuiters Kathy Watt (Australia),
Dietmar Muller (Austria), Rodney Henderson (Canada), Erica Salumae
(Estonia), Tea Vikstedt-Nyman (Finland), Phillipe Ermenault (France),
Phillip Collins (Ireland), Antonella Bellutti and Gianfranco Contri
(Italy), Arturas Kasputis, Mindaugaes and Rasa Mazeikyte of Lithuania,
May-Britt Vaaland of Norway, Robert Karsnicki (Poland), Alexei Mikailovitch
and Svetlana Samochvalova of Russia, Juan Martinez (Spain), Elene Chalyei
and Anrei Iasenko of the Ukraine, Mariano Friedick and Rebecca Twigg of the
USA.

Kilo riders:
Christian Meidlinger (Austria), Aussie Rod Henderson, Gianluca Capitano
(Italy), Yuchiro Kamiyama (Japan), Grzegorz Krejner (Poland), Russia's
Kouznetsov, Moreno of SpainBogdan Bondarev of the Ukraine and Erin Hartwell
of the USA.

The program was floating along on an hourly schedule for a delayed start,
but a cold front is expected for later this afternoon - bringing expected
bad weather that might not clear until Sunday which would push the schedule
into the Monday rain date.