WUHAN, China –
After nearly three hours of twists and turns, members of the Armed Forces Sports Men’s Cycling team fell short of victory during the 7th CISM Military World Games individual road race.
Six members of the men’s cycling team from the Air Force, Army and Marine Corps took part in an arduous 127.6-kilometer road race in Wuhan, China.
“I think we did a good job executing the plan. Our goal was to keep the sprinters in position and rested as best as possible,” said Air Force Capt. Stefan Zavislan. “There are a lot of different teams that have a lot of fire power here, so we tried our best to cover their moves and stay out of trouble.”
Fast. Technical. Twisted. That’s how most U.S. cyclists described the course with the entire team finishing the race at roughly two hours and 45 minutes.
Army Reserve Cpt. Jose Solis, the U.S. men and women’s cycling coach, said “For these guys, this is the highest level you can achieve while in the military, so this is our pinnacle event and everyone performed great today.”
The first cyclist to cross the finish line was Air Force Maj. Ian Holt, who finished three seconds after German cyclist Patrick Haller, placing 11th out of 102 participants.
“We had one rider, Maj. Holt, who was in the break which barely survived,” explained Zavislan. At 80 miles, it’s certainly not short and with all of the bumping and banging, the result that really matters is the top finish from the team.”
Next across the finish line for United States was Marine Corps Capt. Ryan Buerman with a time of 2:42:53.
Rounding out the 6-man cycling squad for United States were:
-- Army Capt. Alexander Driscoll
-- Air Force 1st Lt. Tristan Manderfeld
-- Air Force Capt. John ShalekBriski
The United States took 7th place in the team competition out of 22 international teams. Latvia won the team gold, Germany took silver and France won the team bronze. German cyclist Patrick Haller finished at 2:42:45 and took gold, Latvia cyclist Andris Vosekalns took silver with a time of 2:42:47 and France cyclist Alexis Bodiot took bronze in the individual competition with a time of 2:42:48.