Young, Van Kooten top ITTs

Junior Teter rider Caitlin Van Kooten couldn’t wait to get her Individual Time Trial run started. But when the gun went off, she went nowhere.

With a standing start to the four-lap event, the volunteer holding her bike didn’t hear the gun –  holding on tight as Van Kooten tried in vain to pedal.

“I was so amped up, so ready to go, and then they were holding my bike,” the Teeter rider said.

Reshuffled to two heats later, Van Kooten used that pent-up energy to win the women’s event with a time of 2:40.03.

In the end, she said the miscommunication didn’t matter.

“I think it was good,” Van Kooten said after the event, “I was just enraged and I was going to take it out.”

On the men’s side, defending Individual Time Trials champion and member of the pole-winning Cutters team, junior Eric Young posted a 2:22 to win the men’s event for the second straight year.

Following Young, Phi Kappa Psi took three of the next five positions. One of those spots came from the last ride of the night. Senior Dan Brown lost the chain on his bike during the third lap of his initial qualifying run. He was granted a second attempt that took place a few minutes after 11 p.m.

His 2:25 time placed him third, above senior teammate Adam Mercer.

“I could feel the burn from the first attempt, but I’m happy with my finish,” Brown said.
With junior Pat O’Hara’s sixth place time of 2:26.84, Phi Psi posted a strong showing in the first of three spring series events and positioned itself well for a team goal of earning the jersey for winning the spring series.

“We’re a strong team,” Brown said. “We’re looking for a victory this year. It puts us in contention for the coveted white jersey.”

Phi Delta Theta’s Steve Sharp (2:24.13) and Baxter Burnworth (2:26.5) finished second and fifth.

Wednesday’s event, which featured 85 heats that spanned seven hours, is all about the individual. With riders starting in each corner of the track, there’s little drafting and no possibility for teamwork.

Simply, it’s a four-lap race against the clock.

“It’s just so intense,” Young said. “First lap you just try to get out real fast, second lap you start to lock up, third lap pain really gets to you, and the fourth lap you just try to hold on.”

Other riders described the event as painful and different than the race itself.

“You’re just by yourself the whole time,” Pi Beta Phi senior rider and second-place finisher Caroline Brown said. “You’re not competing against anyone. Brute strength is what this is about and that’s not what the race is about.”

With a slight breeze and a slick track, times were a few seconds slower than last year. Eric Young’s winning time was about four seconds slower than last year. Van Kooten’s time was six seconds slower than the 2009 winning time from now-graduated rider Kristi Hewitt.

Van Kooten, Brown (2:41.01), Delta Gamma teammates Kelsey Kent (2:44.09) and Lauren Half (2:44.44), and Kappa Delta’s Jennifer Balbach (2:44.75) were the top five finishers on the women’s side.