JUNIOR NATIONAL CYCLING : This Big Cyclist Is Heavy Competitor

SAN DIEGO â€”  At 6-foot-2, 170 pounds, George Hincappie of Farmingdale, N.Y. dwarfs his fellow competitors in junior cycling.

Most cyclists are of average height and slight build. It’s sort of the nature of the sport. The less weight one pulls around with him, the more swiftly he can scale grades, cut through wind and maneuver around sharp corners.

And size doesn’t necessarily translate into strength, either.

“Size is just more weight to carry around,� Hincappie said.

Still, his opponents at the U.S. Cycling Federation Junior Nationals, being held here this week, seem to be intimidated by Hincappie’s presence.

His first opponent Monday morning at the San Diego Velodrome in the 2,000-meter pursuit for 17- and 18-year olds scratched.

Wonder why? This guy only placed seventh in the road race at the Junior World championships in England last month. He was the first American to finish the 80-mile course and would have placed higher, he thinks, had two spokes not broken on the second-to-last lap, hindering his sprint.

After some name shuffling Monday morning, it was announced Pete Betjaman would be the fill-in and ride against Hincappie.

While Hincappie did not catch Betjaman, he did finish with the fastest qualifying time of the morning, 3:33.9, to earn the top seed in the quarterfinals.

Afterward his coaches insisted that he wasn’t pushing himself hard enough--he could have had a better time.

Later Monday evening Dan Reinkensmeyer had the misfortune of going against Hincappie in the quarterfinals. Reinkensmeyer recorded the slowest qualifying time in the morning.

Predictably, Hincappie made it look easy and dropped Reinkensmeyer from the competition with a time of 3:45.90.

In fact, maybe it was too easy. Because Hincappie was able to coast along, he turned in the slowest time of those who advanced to today’s semifinals. The result being that the top two junior pursuit riders in the nation will face each other not in the finals, but instead in today’s semifinals.

Chris Coletta of Addison, Wis., who had the second-fastest qualifying time in the morning, 3:43.79, and the fastest time in the evening, 3:41.55, will be Hincappie’s opponent in the semifinals.

Cycling Notes

Crystal Waters of San Diego won the 500-meter time trial in the girls’ 13-15 division with a time of 40.28. . . . Kevin Monahan, who on Sunday won the controversy-marred criterium in the boys’ 17-18 division, was finally given his gold medal and stars and stripes jersey on Monday. The medal ceremony was delayed while USCF officials reviewed tapes of the last two laps when volunteers tried stopping the race because of an accident. . . . Paul Burke had trouble getting going in the last-chance heat to make the round of 16 in the sprint for boys 15-16. He got to the line once, only to break one of his toe straps. After replacing it, he returned to the line only to break his other toe strap. He returned again, started, but did not qualify. . . . In the 500-meter time trials for boys 15-16, won by Ken Fritts of Rancho Palos Verdes at 37.10, two cyclists finished with the exact time down to one-thousandth of a second. Yan Feldman of Columbia, Md. and Mike Mialkovsky of San Jose came in at 40.552. . . . Today’s events begin at 8 a.m. at the velodrome.