Lindsey Wilson Tops at Inaugural Collegiate BMX Nationals

Dominique Daniels won the intra-collegiate National Championship in the Elite Women's class for Grand Canyon University.

The first-ever collegiate national championship for BMX took place this past weekend in Chula Vista, CA, and saw great some of the weekend's most exciting racing action. A total of 21 riders from seven schools contested the event, first announced just three months ago, and those numbers are expected to grow in the future. Both collegiate divisions were combined for the inaugural events, and results are not counting this first year toward the overall collegiate national rankings, but they will in 2013.

Women’s Event

Of the two teams that fielded riders for the women’s event, both ended up winning in different ways. Lindsey Wilson College, which had six of the race’s seven riders, accumulated the most points in the event toward the overall team title, but could not put a rider across the line first in any of the event’s first three motos or in the main event. That honor went to Grand Canyon University’s Dominique Daniels, who didn’t lose a single race during the collegiate event, and appeared to do it with ease, winning by several bike lengths in each race. This was despite the best efforts of Lindsey Wilson’s Madison Pitts, who has competed at USA Cycling Collegiate Track and Mountain Bike National Championships in the past, and podiumed at the latter in 2011. In the end, Pitts took second, followed closely by Lindsey Wilson’s Stephanie Caluag.

Men’s Event

The men’s race saw a full six teams participate, and was much closer than the women’s event. In the first set of motos, the University of New Mexico’s Kalvin Davis won all three rounds, handily advancing to the main event, despite a challenging field of riders from Lindsey Wilson, San Diego State, and Virginia Tech. In the second group, Lindsey Wilson’s Danny Caluag won the first moto, but was beat in the next two by Cal State San Marcos’ Bryce Hocking. One upset in that group was Olympic College’s Joshua Klatman, a top-ranked doemestic rider, widely expected to shine in the collegiate category, who failed to advance to the main event.

Some of the riders that competed at the first collegiate BMX national championship. Photo courtesy USA BMX

In the main, despite Davis’ stunning performances in the initial moto, a slow start put him behind the field and gave him only eighth place, while at the front of the field it was all Caluag, taking the victory for Lindsey Wilson College handily. Behind him was his teammate Logan Collins, with Hocking in third.

Team Omnium

After years of recruiting BMX riders to their program in Columbia, KY, Lindsey Wilson’s unique strategy paid off in spades, as they won the event with a ‘perfect score’ of 188 points, meaning they collected the most points in both the men’s and women’s event. Right behind them, however, was a tie between Grand Canyon University, thanks to Daniels’ win in the women’s race, and San Diego State, which fielded a full three rider squad in the men’s event. With second place points for each team, the tiebreaker went to the team with the highest placing for an individual rider, which went to Grand Canyon University. If either team could bring even one rider of the opposite gender to next year’s event, it would easily make the difference between a tie and a decisive placing.

Full team results can be found here.

Full individual results can be found here.

This Article Updated April 3, 2014 @ 08:51 PM For more information contact: