USA men's picks for worlds

USA Cycling has announced its Elite Men's automatic and discretionary nominations for the 2007 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships scheduled for January 27-28 in Hooglede-Gits, Belgium. Three athletes met automatic qualification criteria, while three more earned discretionary picks.

The top-three men ranked in the top 50 of the latest UCI standings - Ryan Trebon (Kona), Tim Johnson (Cyclocrossworld.com) and Barry Wicks (Kona) - all met the first condition with a top-50 international ranking. Trebon also captured a national title at last month's USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships and won the overall Crank Brothers US Gran Prix of Cyclo-cross series. Ranked 19th in the world, Trebon is joined by Johnson and Wicks, who are ranked 31st and 47th respectively, in the squad.

Discretionary picks for the US Elite Men's team include Jonathan Page (Cervelo), Erik Tonkin (Kona) and Tristan Schouten (Trek-Volkswagen). Page and Tonkin have each posted impressive results in Europe this season, with Page scoring a second-place finish at Nordzeecross, a UCI category-two race in Middelekerke, Belgium, last month while Tonkin placing 16th at a similar event also in Belgium. Schouten's success this season was all domestic based with a 15th-place finish at the national championships and several top-ten finishes in UCI-sanctioned races throughout America.