Sarah Returns to Action in Pursuit of Olympic Gold!

Having spent the summer recovering from a debilitating back injury that forced her to miss the Pan Am Games, Sarah is back on track in her golden pursuit. She put some racing kilometers into her legs last month (October 3-6) at the U.S. National Track Championships held at the ADT Center in Carson, California where she trains twice a week.

Sarah decided it would be wise to ease back into action, thus she sat out the individual pursuit. Instead she competed in both the men’s and women’s team pursuit. Using the men’s event early in the week as training, Sarah proved to be firing on all cylinders in the women’s team pursuit, a new event that will be held for the first time at the 2008 World Track Championships. Teaming with national sprint and keirin champion Jennie Reed and newly crowned individual pursuit champion Dotsie Bausch, Sarah helped power the women over the three kilometers to a national championship in a world record time of 3:34.783.

“It was so much fun to race with Jennie and Dotsie. It was our first time (racing) together so we’re only going to get smoother and faster,” said an enthused Sarah after the race. “It felt good to be racing again. There was no pressure so I was able to just get out there and enjoy myself. More importantly, the back gave me no problems and I’m very happy about that.”

With the track cycling season just getting underway, Sarah will next compete at the World Cup event in Sydney, Australia November 30th through December 2nd and then move on to the Olympic test event the following week in Beijing, China. In March, she’ll be racing for a third consecutive World Championship title in the individual pursuit, but her primary goal remains Olympic gold in Beijing next August, where she is favored to become the first American woman to win a medal on the track since Rebecca Twigg medaled in 1984. Felt Bicycles is currently putting the finishing touches on a custom-designed track bike for Hammer. - Report Courtesy of Rick Scott @ Great Scott P.R.oductions.