{"id":47658,"date":"2021-03-30T19:01:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T01:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-colleges-blunk-takes-u23-gold-at-pan-american-continental-mountain-bike-championships\/"},"modified":"2021-03-31T01:01:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T01:01:30","slug":"fort-lewis-colleges-blunk-takes-u23-gold-at-pan-american-continental-mountain-bike-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-colleges-blunk-takes-u23-gold-at-pan-american-continental-mountain-bike-championships\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College\u2019s Blunk takes U23 gold at Pan American Continental Mountain Bike Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango\u2019s
Durango\u2019s Savilia Blunk handles a corner on the worn-down course in Salinas, Puerto Rico. She would win the women\u2019s under-23 race of the Pan American Continental Mountain Bike Championships.<\/span>Courtesy of USA Cycling<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Unsure what her future mountain biking career would hold, Fort Lewis College\u2019s Savilia Blunk trained through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with no races on which to set her sights. But after working hard to form a new team with her partner and races back on the schedule in 2021, Blunk was ready to show why she worked hard to remain in race shape for so long.<\/p>\n

It paid off Saturday, as Blunk won the women\u2019s under-23 cross-country race at the Pan American Continental Championships in Salinas, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

Blunk finished in 1 hour, 20 minutes, 38 seconds. Second place went to Boulder\u2019s Madigan Munro, who finished in 1:24:01. Chile\u2019s Catalina Vidaurre was third in 1:25:00.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis feels great. This was really the first week of big races in over a year for me, so it felt so good to put all the work I\u2019ve been doing the last year to the test,\u201d Blunk said. \u201cI think a lot of athletes felt the same way. It was really nice to cross that finish line. I\u2019ve been thinking about this one for awhile and working hard, so it felt good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Durango&#x2019;s
Durango&#x2019;s Savilia Blunk shows her gold medal and Pan American Champion jersey after she won the women&#x2019;s under-23 race Saturday in Salinas, Puerto Rico.<\/span>Courtesy of USA Cycling<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Blunk said the course was pretty worn down after a week\u2019s worth of races. She focused on riding as clean as possible and avoiding any crashes.<\/p>\n

Blunk\u2019s partner, FLC alum Cole Paton, would place sixth in the elite men\u2019s race Sunday. He was the top-American finisher with a final time of 1:32:58. The win went to Mexico\u2019s Jos\u00e9 Gerardo Ulloa Ar\u00e9valo in 1:29:03. He was 1:26 in front of Colombia\u2019s Jonathan Botero.<\/p>\n

Paton and Blunk forged their own path to create their own sponsored team in 2021<\/a> with Pivot Cycles bikes and Orange Seal Cycling as the title sponsor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was really our international debut with our new team together. Having the races go smoothly for both of us all week and putting our work to the test, it\u2019s special to share it together and with our sponsors,\u201d Blunk said. \u201cWe can\u2019t say thank you enough to Orange Seal and Pivot and everyone who helped get us here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also in the men\u2019s elite race, North Carolina\u2019s Luke Vrouwenvelder was seventh in 1:33:16. Durango\u2019s Stephan Davoust placed 11th in 1:34:14. Russell Finsterwald of Colorado Springs was 19th in 1:38:48.<\/p>\n

In the elite women\u2019s race, FLC alumna Sofia Gomez-Villafane, representing Argentina, would finish second in 1:28:30. Mexico\u2019s Daniela Campazano took the win in 1:27:02 American Kelsey Urban placed third after Gomez-Villafane narrowly edged her in a sprint finish.<\/p>\n

Many riders will head to Arkansas next to race in U.S. Pro Cup races. Blunk then plans to head to Europe for the first two UCI World Cup races of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a long season with a ton of racing, which I\u2019m ready for after not a lot last year,\u201d Blunk said. \u201cThis win is a confidence booster telling me where I\u2019m at, and I\u2019m excited to build on it with training as I start focusing on more races through the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

top-American in elite men\u2019s race<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[657,28,977,29,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cycling","tag-headlines","tag-mountain-biking","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47658"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}