Via Mountainbikeracer.com

Colorado Springs, Colo. - The 2005 USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships continued on Friday as Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Boulder, Colo.) captured his fourth consecutive pro men’s national cross country title and Mary McConneloug (Chilmark, Mass.) added a second stars and stripes jersey to her closet with a win in the pro women’s race.

Horgan-Kobelski executed his pre-race game plan to perfection and held off Todd Wells (Durango, Colo.) by nearly four minutes, clocking a winning time of one hour, 50 minutes and 39 seconds over the 24-mile course.

“My plan for the race was to put in a huge effort in the middle of the race to see if I could get a big gap and demoralize people,” Horgan-Kobelski explained. “I felt great at the start so I stuck with the plan and it worked out.”

Since USA Cycling scrapped a season-long points system in favor of a winner-take-all one-day format to decide the national champion, Horgan-Kobelski has focused his efforts on the season-ending race.

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