Idaho Mountain Express: Olympic bronze to mountain biker Georgia Gould

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Olympic bronze to mountain biker Georgia Gould

Former Ketchum rider earns medal in England

Georgia Gould poses in Ketchum during July’s USA Cycling National Championships on Baldy. Photo by Willy Cook

Her trip to England turned into an Olympic medal-winning performance Saturday, Aug. 11 for former Ketchum mountain biker Georgia Gould, now of Fort Collins, Colo.

Gould, 32, the 5-9, 134-pound psychology graduate of the University of Montana, won the bronze medal in Saturday's Olympic women's 17.4-mile cross-country race by 33 seconds with a final time of 1.32:00.

In her second Olympics, Gould captured her first medal and became the first U.S. female to medal in Olympic XC mountain biking since Susan DeMattei took the bronze at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, Ga. Gould placed eighth in the 2008 Games at Beijing.

Saturday, Gould placed third in the field of 28 finishers—the top American by 3:14 over 11th-place Lea Davison, 29, of Jericho, Vt. (1.35:14). The technical course featured six laps on an obstacle-lined 2.9-mile circuit. Gould was ninth after the first lap but picked off riders on her second and third laps.

The wire-to-wire leader and gold medalist was 23-year-old Julie Bresset of France in 1.30:52, ahead of silver medalist and 2008 Olympic queen Sabine Spitz of Germany in 1.31:54.

Baltimore (Md.) native Gould got her start in mountain biking while living in Ketchum from 1999-2005. Her first race was the Galena Grinder 11 years ago. She turned pro in 2004 and competed in the entire NORBA National Mountain Bike Series a year later. She was chosen for the LUNA Women's Mountain Bike Team in 2006, the year she won her first national title.

This past July in Sun Valley, Gould won her third straight national cross-country title on a six-lap, 21.5-mile course during the 2012 USA Cycling Mountain Bike Cross-Country National Championships on Baldy. She has now won the national title four times.

Prior to the Olympics, Gould had struggled in World Cup events, but she saved her best race of the season for when it counted in the Olympic final.

acheter viagra
comprar viagra
buy viagra

About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged: