This just in from USA Cycling:

USA Cycling announced the names of 11 athletes who are eligible to represent the United States at the 2008 Olympic Games in the discipline of men’s and women’s mountain biking. Six men and five women were named to the Long Team last week. Of the six men named to the squad, five received automatic nominations as the top-five Americans in the UCI Mountain Bike Rankings on December 31, 2007 provided they were in the top 60 overall – Adam Craig (Bend, Ore.), Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Boulder, Colo.), Todd Wells (Durango, Colo.), Jeremiah Bishop (Harrisonburg, W. Va.) and Michael Broderick (Chilmark, Mass.). Craig was the highest-ranked U.S. rider in 16th, followed by Horgan-Kobelski in 28th, Wells in 32nd, Bishop in 37th and Broderick in 59th. Ranked 75th in the world as the sixth American, Sam Schultz (Missoula, Mont.) received the only discretionary nomination to the men’s mountain bike Long Team.

A similar model was used to select the women’s mountain bike Long Team as four athletes earned automatic nominations. Georgia Gould (Ketchum, Idaho), Mary McConneloug (Fairfax, Calif.), Willow Koerber (Asheville, N.C.) and Heather Irmiger (Boulder, Colo.) were selected as the top-four Americans in the UCI Mountain Bike Rankings on December 31, 2007 provided they were in the top 40 overall. Gould and McConneloug both finished the season in the top ten, ranked sixth and seventh respectively, while Koerber finished the year ranked 11th and Irmiger 26th. Sue Haywood (Davis, W. Va.) was the sole discretionary nomination to the women’s mountain bike Long Team. She finished the year ranked 47th in the world as the next-best American.

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