GAME OVER: paralympic trials road TT

Just finished the road time trial for paralympic selection. We rode really well and did 100.9 % of our time standard of 1 minute 17.6 seconds per kilometer. We rode a 17:56 on a tough little course with some difficult turns and hills. Unfortunately it was not good enough to get selection for the team. The hand cyclists and amputees ruled the day. 3 of them did 95% of their time standard! I don't know just what their standard was, but that is incredible. With only 6 male slots for the team and 3 of them "ring fenced" we would have needed to ride about 97% of our standard to get selection . We rode over 28mph average....and honestly no matter what we could have done we would no way have been able to ride fast enough to do 97%! To do a 97% for the pursuit we would have literally had to come close to setting a world record!
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So in the end...after all the hard work and time....training for an event I had never done before (pursuit) and travel, we never really did have a shot at making the team. The way the selection rules are written, and the small size of the team the US had qualified for the paralympics we were fitghting a losing battle from the onset.....of course we did not know this until recently....most of this is new for this paralympics as the uci recently took control of the cycling events and new rules are in place for Beijing.
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I do know that we trained hard and raced well....to the best of our abilities....and for me, the experience was truly amazing.
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I hope to have some pictures and more thoughts up here soon....
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a2