Mary raced this morning finishing ninth. Gunn Rita won as expected. Lots of details online. There is a good story and nice photos at http://www.usacycling.org.

Way to go Mary on a top 10 performance!

Just in case you are out of the loop. Mary races Friday morning. Todd and JHK race Saturday morning. NBC is supposed to televise the action late Friday and late Saturday nights.

We have finalized our media kits and have sent out nearly 100 to potential sponsors, magazine, TV channels, etc. The latest trailer is now online and we have also added eight rider movies. These short movies will give you a glimpse into the minds of all eight riders that we followed this year.

http://www.offroadtoathens.com/riders/

Keep your fingers crossed for team USA!

Ken

We’ve started making individual little movies of each athlete to show potential sponsors just how in depth our coverage of their quest is. We will connect them to each rider on the RIDERS page. It’s amazing how long even just a 2 minute video can take if you put some extra cuts in there. That realization makes pause and think how hard it will be to cut 2 hours worth. On top of a full-time job? I know I can’t continue like this. In the office by 9am, leave around 6, rush home to wolf down some food as fast as I can to maximize time for editing. Turn off the phones. Try not to look at my kayak outside the window. I haven’t been thinking about riding much since I sold my bike in Austria to pay the rent. Guess it’s better that way. I watch the sunset from indoors and work till I see it start to come up again - when I can hear birds chirping, I know I have to save it, shut it down and get some sleep. Then it’s get up at 8:00 and do it again. I need to get rid of the office job…

I’ve been stressing over whether or not we got enough emotion, got enough of the inside story, got to know each rider enough. Doing these little videos has made me look back over footage I had yet to watch. And I realized, with a big, fat smile on my face, that yea - we got it. Look for them in the next day or two.

This ball is massive, but now it’s rolling…

photo is Ecuador. Seems so long ago.

Well it is now all over. The final court battle is complete and the final verdict is that Mary will be racing three weeks from now in Athens. Both women, currently ranked 2nd and 3rd in the world, deserve to be at the Olympics, but alas, only one can go. Hats off to both ladies who week in and week out gave it everything they had. Not once this entire year did Mary or Sue ever quit a race. In fact, to the best of my knowledge they never even suffered a flat. This is truly amazing and I feel privileged to be part of this unbelievable year.

Ken

In case you have not been staying up to speed, this Friday at the Federal Court in Denver, the case of Susan Haywood vs. Mary McConneloug, USA Cycling and USOC will be heard.

This evidentiary hearing and will determine whether or not the original arbitration case, which awarded the sole Olympic spot to Mary, is valid. If Sue loses, there is nothing left for her to do. If Sue wins, I guess we are in for some more legal wrangling.

If we only had 3 Olympic spots…

We will let you know once we hear what happened.