An interview with Katie Compton: Against the odds

Compton rode powerfully (Image credit: Russ & Nancy Wright)

Coming from virtually nowhere to win both the 2004 and 2005 US national Cyclocross championships, Katie Compton remains quite an enigma for US cycling fans. Cyclingnews' Steve Medcroft spoke with Compton after her second national championships win last December and found out a little more about this talented rider.

In 2004 Katie Compton surprised the elite women's field at Cyclo-cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon. She had no UCI points and started at the back of the grid, and as she hadn't raced a US Gran Prix of Cyclo-cross race, media and competitors who had been facing each other all year in top-level ‘cross knew little about her. It wasn't until she stomped to the front of the race, opened a defiant gap on the field and took the championship jersey without a challenge that we learned a little more.

In an interview with Cyclingnews after that race, her Carmichael Training Systems elite coach told us that she avoided UCI races because they would have affected her eligibility to compete as the sighted pilot to a blind stoker on a Paralympics track tandem team; that team won gold in Athens in 2004. We also learned that she had trained for nationals by quietly competing in men's races in Colorado.