RACING HOME : Swedish Cyclist a Local in La Jolla

Although Marianne Berglund has lived in the San Diego area just five years, she treats the Bud Light La Jolla Grand Prix as a heavyweight champion would treat a title fight in his hometown.

“It’s my home race,” said Berglund, who won the La Jolla Grand Prix in 1986 and ‘88, finished third in ’87 and fourth in ’85. “I don’t want anyone invading my territory. If you have won the race the year before, you feel like you have to defend your title.”

Berglund moved to Cardiff by the Sea from Sweden, so she could join the U.S. women’s cycling circuit at a time when the sport was beginning to take off.

“Everything is so advanced now--the equipment, the technology,” Berglund said.

During her five years in the United States, Berglund has won more than 100 criterium (short course) races.

A friend of U.S. cyclist Connie Carpenter, Berglund wrote to the 1984 Olympic gold medalist that year for help in securing sponsorship. Carpenter obliged and soon after Berglund was racing for Levi Strauss, Carpenter’s racing team.

“I wanted to move (to San Diego County) because this is where the racing is the best,” she said. “I got lucky because I came over when the sport was really taking off.”

Only five years before, Berglund was doing her racing on the slopes instead of the streets.

“Cycling was just something I did to train during the two-month off-season in skiing,” said Berglund, who began skiing at age 6.

But the riding bug stuck with Berglund, and at 17 she was offered a cycling scholarship by a Swedish college. Once she accepted the scholarship, her promising skiing career was history.

“Now I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” she said. “I love what I’m doing. It’s fast, dangerous, colorful and noisy. I encourage everybody to do it.”

At last year’s La Jolla Grand Prix, Berglund out-sprinted Sally Zack and Jeannie Golay for a 15-yard victory. It was vintage Berglund.

Known for her sprinting, the 5-foot-3 Berglund is hoping Sunday’s 20-mile women’s Grand Prix, which begins at 1:15 p.m., unfolds the same way.

“My main concern is to make sure I’m up in front to make sure nobody goes off, and then try to win the sprint,” said Berglund, who won 13 criterium races last year. “Last year it was a breakaway with five of us about 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. It’s very possible this year’s race could be like that.”

However, Berglund said she will not be able to win the 33-lap race by herself. If she is to capture her third Grand Prix in the five-year history of the event, Berglund’s Lycra teammates will have to provide drafting or “lead-outs”--a racing maneuver commonly used to shield the premier rider from the wind. The strategic goal is to save the sprinter’s energy for the finish of the race.

“It’s very important to have help,” said Berglund, who won the 1983 World Championship of road racing. “I would probably not have won last year without my teammates. I don’t know of many people who have ever won a race by themselves.”

The La Jolla course, which covers 12 square blocks in the downtown area, has been a perfect match for Berglund’s slim but muscular physique.

“It’s flat with really no hills,” Berglund said.

Longer stage races, like the Tour de France, cramp Berglund’s style with their steep, winding hills.

She has never won a stage race, though she did place seventh in last week’s 10-day Tour of Texas.

“It’s all in the muscle makeup,” Berglund said. “My size helps me out in the sprints, but the 5-10 girls are more suited to the stage races. They have more endurance than me and different muscles.”

But Berglund has the “explosive muscles.”

“I was born with the kind of muscles that are better for shorter distances,” she said. “If I was a track and field athlete, I’d be a sprinter.”

Yet Berglund doesn’t ignore distance work either. She rides more than 300 miles a week on her 16-pound, $2,000 precision-crafted cycle, lifts weights three times weekly and does hill work “in large gears” once a week. All training regimens are prescribed by her coach, Ron Smith, a local triathlete who she has worked with for more than two years.

“Ron’s been very good for me,” she said. “Much of my success last year was because of his weight training.”

Maybe the only blemish on Berglund’s season last year was another sub-par Olympics. Competing for Sweden, Berglund failed for the second time to made the top 20.

“It was a disappointment,” said Berglund, who had won two U.S. Olympic trial races in 1988.

But it did not crush happy-go-lucky Berglund, who in her six-month off-season takes classes at Mesa College. Next year Berglund is planning to attend MiraCosta College full-time.

But for the next five months, she will be a full-time cycling student, averaging almost two races a week through October.

Notes

Sunday’s La Jolla Grand Prix begins with a bicycle freestyle competition at 1 p.m, followed by the women’s race at 1:15. There will be a six-mile human-powered vehicle race at 2 p.m., a wheelchair race at 2:25, and a celebrity race at 2:45.

The 40-mile men’s race is scheduled at 3 p.m. The men’s race features defending champion Norm Alvis, previous winner Jeff Pierce, U.S. National Champ Kent Bostick, last year’s runner-up Chris Carmichael and 1984 Olympic gold medalist Steve Hegg.