The USGP series came to a close last weekend after muddy events in Lakewood, Washington and Portland, Oregon, and Lyne Bessette and Ryan Trebon secured the series titles for 2006.
In the final event, the Scion Stumptown Cup in Portland, Trebon finished fifth on the day but mathematically had the series championship locked up before turning a wheel. Bessette held a slight advantage over Georgia Gould (Luna) prior to the start but wrapped up the series by finishing one place ahead Gould in second to successfully defend her USGP title.
In the men's race, Barry Wicks (Kona) led the first lap and jumped out to an early lead before a series of mechanicals took him out of contention. Ahead for most of the race were Trebon and Tim Johnson (Cannondale/Cyclocrossworld.com). At the race's halfway mark Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly) was able to catch them and the three rode together. After getting ahead of both Trebon and Powers, Johnson, who excels in the mud, stayed away and won by a significant margin.
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The women's race saw six riders away for about half of the race: Bessette, Katie Compton (Spike), Katerina Nash (Luna), Wendy Simms (Kona), Georgia Gould (Luna) and Melissa Thomas (Maxxis). Bessette, who entered the day with a small lead in the overall standings, began to pull away leaving a second group of Nash, Simms and Gould. Nash eventually pulled away from this group and caught Bessette on the last lap. With a third of a lap to go, Bessette was trying to ride on the edge of the mud and hooked her bars on the tape. This slight delay gave Nash enough of a gap to hold off Bessette and win the race. Bessette finished second, Gould third, Simms fourth and Compton, who was not her usual dominate self today, finished fifth. The second placing means Bessette, the current Canadian National Champion, successfully defended USGP title.
