Prémont delays retirement

Rocky Mountain Bicycles team rider Marie-Hélène Prémont will contest the World Cup for at least one more year in 2009. Prémont, 31 years-old and from Chateau-Richer, Quebec, Canada, had previously intended to retire at the end of the 2008 season.

This summer, she enjoyed her most successful racing season ever, winning two World Cups on the way to capturing the UCI World Cup overall title, and successfully defending her National Champion title for the sixth time in a row, a Canadian record.

"I am really looking forward to coming back for another season. I feel like I am only getting better and I want to see what more I can do," she said. "Rocky Mountain was happy for me to ride another year, so it wasn't too difficult of a decision."

Prémont is in her third year of her Pharmacy degree at the University of Laval in Quebec with one year left to go, which makes her recent racing accomplishments that much more impressive. "Eventually I want to have a family, so I will have to stop racing one day to do that, but for now I want to focus on school and racing."

Like many of her male counterparts, Prémont has played a role in helping her sponsor develop its equipment. She was instrumental in launching Rocky Mountain's first foray into carbon fiber with its new Vertex RSL. After receiving the frame just four days before Canadian Nationals at Mont St. Anne this summer, and she took the win there and the following weekend at the World Cup.

Prémont will line up with the best in the world again starting with the opening round of the 2009 World Cup in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.