He Has One Last Go ‘Round

Marty Nothstein is the best American cyclist not named Lance Armstrong.

Few sports fans in the U.S., however, can name any cyclist besides Armstrong, who has become an international celebrity by winning the grueling Tour de France six times and surviving cancer.

If Americans think of Armstrong when they think of cycling, “They should. Rightfully so,” said Nothstein, who has won Olympic gold and silver medals in the match sprint, three world championships and 34 U.S. titles.

“Lance Armstrong right now is our poster boy for cycling in this country, but there are a lot more riders than Lance Armstrong. There’s myself: I’m the Lance Armstrong of track cycling, but unfortunately, track cycling doesn’t get the exposure of the Tour de France.

“The more exposure Lance gets, the better it is for the sport in general, without a doubt. And that goes from Lance being a road rider to Marty being a track cyclist to a mountain biker to a BMX rider. They’re all bicycles and we all race them.”

But Nothstein won’t be racing at the highest level much longer.

The Track Cycling World Championships, scheduled Thursday through Sunday at the ADT Event Center at the Home Depot Center in Carson, will be the final world track competition of the 34-year-old Pennsylvanian’s career. The event will feature athletes from 36 countries vying for medals in six individual disciplines for men and women, and three men’s team events.

Nothstein will team with Colby Pearce in the madison, in which pairs take turns racing on the banked track and change riders by tagging each other, usually with a slingshot action that gives momentum to the new rider. Teams are ranked according to laps gained or lost on the opposition and by points earned in sprints during the race.

“I’m excited, on a personal level, to be riding with Colby and to have a world championships on my own soil,” Nothstein said after a recent workout on the ADT Event Center track. “Unfortunately, I wish it was about five or six years ago, when I was hot and heavy and in my heyday of track cycling.”

In 1994, Nothstein became the first American in 90 years to win a world championship sprint title. He also won the keirin title -- keirin racing is similar to the individual sprint but features six to eight riders on the track instead of two -- in 1994 and again in 1996 but lost the Atlanta Olympic match sprint gold to Germany’s Jens Fiedler in a photo finish. He came back to win gold at Sydney in 2000 and, having accomplished all he set out to do on the track, turned to road racing and criteriums. He was successful again, notably in winning the 62-mile New York City Pro Cycling Tour event in August 2003.

“I still enjoyed strapping my helmet on and pinning a number on my back and competing and racing, and I’ve always been intrigued with the endurance side of cycling,” he said of the switch from track to endurance racing. “I’d raced the road up until my early 20s and excelled at it....

“Nothing is as hard as training to win an Olympic gold medal. I’ve tried everything. Nothing’s that difficult. It’s a four-year buildup, a four-year plan, and you can feel the ultimate high and you can feel the ultimate low. In ‘96, I felt the low. In 2000, I felt the high. The low, even after winning a silver medal, just wasn’t what I wanted.”

Pat McDonough, director of track cycling programs for USA Cycling and a 1984 Olympic team pursuit silver medalist, attributed Nothstein’s success to “the ability to suffer” in short, intense bursts of track races as well as in workouts. Armstrong, he said, has shown the same indomitable will in the Tour de France.

“I’ve known Marty since he was a teenager, and he’s always had that ability to train harder than everybody else and just suffer more to get himself to that point,” McDonough said. “At the highest level, there’s usually not a lot of physical difference, in most sports. Cycling’s not any different that way.

“If you look at the top 10 athletes, physically, they are very similar. It’s who’s willing to do more, who has the right attitude -- those are the things that separate the guys who end up on the medal stand all the time, versus the ones that rarely do.”

Nothstein is exiting the international stage while he’s on top. Still a lanky 6-2 and 188 pounds, he’s as competitive as when he was a kid and a neighbor suggested that instead of challenging his brother to a rock-throwing contest he should expend his energy on the cycling track near his home in Trexlertown, Pa. To his family’s dismay, he has already lined up his next challenge: drag racing.

“Everything’s about racing,” he said. “I tried to explain that to my father, who thinks drag racing is a dangerous sport to take up, but I told him that I’ve been a racer all my life. Ever since I was 3 years old, it’s all about racing.”

Cycling will continue to be a big part of his life after his last road races this year. He has been named director of the velodrome in Trexlertown, and he’s looking forward to shaping the careers of young cyclists, and to being home more with his wife, Christi, 10-year-old son, Tyler, and 7-year-old daughter, Devon.

“I’m missing the sport already,” he said. “Every day I wake up and I know it’s probably one of the last times I’ll be riding on a velodrome like this and training with the guys, so I’m trying to embrace it all and really sit back and get caught up in the moment a little bit.”

The U.S. team’s prospects this week are mixed. It’s in transition after the Athens Games, in which Erin Mirabella of La Habra was the only track cycling medalist.

“Unfortunately, we’re not going into the world championships with a great track record,” said Nothstein, who was eliminated in the opening round of the keirin competition at Athens.

“The last few years we haven’t produced anything at the world championships, but what else can we ask for? The world championships are here, on our own soil, and if we can’t step it up a level or two here, we pretty much have to reevaluate the whole thing and take a step back and probably start over.”

He also hopes the ADT Event Center, the only permanent indoor track in North America, might launch a track cycling renaissance.

“We need about five or six more facilities like this in the country,” he said. “Just creating awareness in this country about track cycling is going to help, and having the world championships here this year is going to help tremendously.

“Hopefully, the successes I’ve had over the last few years have contributed to more participation, and when I’m done racing I plan on promoting track cycling and cycling in general to its fullest.”

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Track Cycling World Championships

The U.S. will be host of the world championships for the first time since 1986.

* Records could fall: Racing on the 250-meter indoor track built of Siberian pine could be conducive to world records.

* Who’s coming: The event is expected to draw athletes from 36 countries, including 27 Olympic medalists, about a dozen world champions and three world-record holders.

* U.S. cyclists to watch: La Habra’s Erin Mirabella, the only U.S. track cyclist to win a medal in Athens; Marty Nothstein, a gold medalist at Sydney and silver medalist at Atlanta in the match sprint.

* Other top countries: Australia, Britain, France, the Netherlands and Italy.