{"id":94060,"date":"2019-05-12T17:44:51","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T23:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/davoust-mcelveen-complete-podium-behind-finsterwald-at-marathon-nationals\/"},"modified":"2019-05-12T17:44:51","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T23:44:51","slug":"davoust-mcelveen-complete-podium-behind-finsterwald-at-marathon-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/davoust-mcelveen-complete-podium-behind-finsterwald-at-marathon-nationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Davoust, McElveen complete podium behind Finsterwald at marathon nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Russell
Russell Finsterwald of Colorado Springs claimed the elite men\u2019s title at the USA Cycling Marathon Mountain Bike Nationals Championships on Saturday in Texas. He was joined on the podium by Durango\u2019s Stephan Davoust, left, and Payson McElveen.<\/span>Dejan Smaic\/USA Cycling<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In a big effort on a wet course in Texas, Colorado Springs\u2019 Russell Finsterwald swiped the stars and stripes national championship jersey from the two-time defending champion in his home state.<\/p>\n

Finsterwald was first to the finish line in Saturday\u2019s USA Cycling Marathon Mountain Bike National Championships in Palo Duro Canyon, Texas. He finished in 3 hours, 1 minute, 35 seconds. He was 2:02 in front of Durango\u2019s Stephan Davoust and 2:33 in front of Payson McElveen, the two-time defending champion who now calls Durango home after growing up in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the back a bit earlier when Russell attacked. I bridged back up to Payson and worked to maintain a gap of about 30 seconds to Russell,\u201d Davoust said in a phone interview with The Durango Herald<\/em>. \u201cRussell kept on the gas, and Payson and I faded out a little bit. I was able to use my technical ability and pull away from Payson toward the end of the race with smaller, shorter attacks to pull away and hold the gap I created to finish up second.\u201d<\/p>\n

McElveen called the race bittersweet but said he had no regrets and will look forward to more upcoming races after holding the marathon national championship jersey for two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prepared well for this one, gave 100% effort, and I just got beat by two guys that pedaled harder,\u201d McElveen said in a post to Instagram<\/a>. \u201cThe course was quite a bit more selective this year than the last couple, especially with some heavy mud spots (our bikes weighed over 30 lbs at the finish!). It was a super fun race with a strong lead group that saw lots of attacks and lead changes. When things really cranked up toward the end on the very demanding 30 minute \u2018Comanche Trail\u2019 section that goes up the canyon wall, I was totally on the limit keeping (Finsterwald) within 10 seconds, and started to believe a three-peat was possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe kept the pressure on, though, and eventually (Davoust) and I were battling for silver. Congrats to Russell on a very deserving title \u2013 he\u2019s been on a tear lately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The podium finish for Davoust continued his strong season. A week earlier he finished on the overall podium at the Soldier Hollow Bike Festival in a four-day UCI points stage race.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom all the early-season races in California to now, I\u2019m really happy with all the results,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m having fun racing. I kind of took a different mindset to the year in the sense that I\u2019m taking a little more rest between races and having more fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davoust and McElveen are both Fort Lewis College cycling alumni. Ryan Standish, another FLC alum, finished sixth in 3:11:11.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s race was won by Rose Grant of Montana. She finished in 3:32:29 to beat Kaysee Armstrong of Tennessee by nearly 17 minutes. Dolores\u2019 Ashley Carelock finished eighth in 4:14:40.<\/p>\n

Among men age 40-44, former Durangoan Nick Gould placed second in his category out of 25 racers. In the men\u2019s race for ages 50-54, Travis Brown won 44 seconds ahead of Timothy Zimmerman.<\/p>\n

Many of the same riders will turn their attention to the Epic Rides Grand Junction Off-Road next weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to keep my streak rolling of podiums and good results,\u201d Davoust said.<\/p>\n

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

marathon mountain bike nationals in Texas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[657,977,2343],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cycling","tag-mountain-biking","tag-sports-group"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94060","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=94060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94060"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}