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Evan McNeely confident ahead of 2014 Canadian cyclocross championships

Evan McNeely

Evan McNeely is not shy about his ambitions for this year’s national cyclocross championships.

“I’m going to try to win,” the 22-year-old Kingston native, Ottawa local, said. A professional mountain biker sponsored by Norco and Stan’s NoTubes, McNeely certainly knows how to perform at a championship. He claimed the national cyclocross title three times during his time as an espoir. In 2013, his fourth year of under-23 eligibility, he decided to race as an elite and finished sixth in the men’s race despite being sick for a week before the event.

This year, he is determined to do better. It won’t be easy, however. “The field is going to be really competitive. Canadian riders are starting to focus specifically on ‘cross racing instead of treating ‘cross as a side note to their mountain bike or road seasons, and they are getting really good,” McNeely said. He won’t have the luxury of having trained just for cyclocross this year has he head to Winnipeg for the nationals. After a full-on season of mountain bike racing, he has been spending much of his time in the study hall. “I’m chugging through a fourth year with a full course load at Carleton University studying mechanical engineering and finding less time to train and recover properly than previous years,” McNeely said.

Still, he is not daunted. “Don’t write me off. I have carried over all the fitness I had during mountain bike season and I’m planning a short, hard training block to get the boost I need in Winnipeg” he explained. “I’m confident I can win.”

Count on McNeely to be at the front in Winnipeg.