Lauren Stephens riding high for Olympic selection in Wednesday’s US time trial championship

Lauren Stephens has been pulling out all of the stops for what could be her last chance to make the USA Olympic team, with her sights set on Wednesday’s women’s individual time trial at the USA Cycling Pro Road Championships in Charleston, West Virginia. The winner of the event will get an automatic ticket to Paris.

After her victory in the Tour of the Gila, Stephens has been training at altitude in hopes she’ll be flying when it comes to race day at just above sea level. Making the Olympics, she tells Cyclingnews, “is part of my reasoning – I don’t know how much longer I want to do this because it is a lot of hard work – how much longer do I want to work this hard?”