PARIS – Todd Wells can’t quite put a fine point on what makes mountain bike racers successful. He just knows it when he sees it. They have a certain “je ne sais quoi.”
It is sort of fitting that the phrase is French, considering Wells believes Durango’s Riley Amos – who is about to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games – has it in spades.
Wells should know, especially when it comes to Olympics-caliber talent. In addition to having captured 15 national titles during his pro career, he also competed in three Summer Games.
“In Durango, we have all sorts of amazing riders. We have no shortage,” he said. “We have group rides, we have local races, the college constantly brings new, young cycling enthusiasts … and everybody is good, or pretty good. But a lot of times doesn’t translate in the races. So you might be on a ride with somebody on the weekend or the group ride and you’re like, ‘God, this guy or girl is just killing it.’ And then you get to the race and you’re like, ‘Well, what happened?’
“Being able to race is a big skill, and I’m not sure that is something you teach,” he said. “Some people can do it, and some people can’t. And for Riley, he’s always been a great racer.”
At age 22, Amos is the fourth youngest of the 36 racers who will line up for Monday’s Olympic race at Elancourt Hill, about 30 miles southwest of the Paris city center (the youngest is Romano Puentener, 20, of Liechtenstein). That doesn’t make him an underdog, however.
He leads the UCI’s U23 World Cup rankings – going undefeated in the Olympic distance and winning seven of eight races overall – and claimed both the short-track and Olympic-distance Pan American Championships earlier this year.
Plus, as Wells noted, Amos has that special something.
Amos seems especially good at turning it on in moments where he’s overlooked.
Case in point: In 2021, with just two U23 World Cup starts under his elastic waistband, he won the race in Leogang, Austria. It was the first ever U23 World Cup victory by an American.
“That was the moment I think you could say the rest is history,” Amos told Olympics.com. “It kicked off my pro career.”
Amos got his start with Durango Devo. The program helps children fall in love with two-wheeled transportation and was the petri dish for another Paris 2024 racer: Christopher Blevins, who thinks his sister coached Amos on Devo for a while.
It’s not a racing team, though, and it wasn’t long before Amos wanted a bigger adrenaline rush than bicycle backpacking trips typically offer.
In 2017, he reached out to Wells, who had recently retired and would at times accompany the group on rides.
“He was pretty raw, but very eager,” Wells said. “Like he wanted to do everything he could, you know? He had made up his mind: he wanted to be a bike racer.”
Essentially, he already was. He just had to do a little fine tuning.
Wells said he took a gradual approach to getting Amos in racing shape to avoid burnout and injury. With modesty, Wells acknowledged the approach worked. Amos won his first UCI race, a Junior Series event at Utah’s Soldier Hollow when he was 16. Then he won another. He followed that performance with a sweep of the short-track and cross-country races in the 16-and-under category at the national championships.
“Everybody likes to see a steady progression up and to the right on a chart, right? We just want to improve as time goes on. And most times, it’s pretty lumpy,” Wells said. “You have some improvements and some setbacks. But for Riley, of course he’s had his improvements and setbacks. But his chart, if you were to look at it over time, would be fairly steady up and to the right.”
Amos was quickly added to the roster of the Bear National Team, a program co-founded by Julia Vuolich that supports promising young racers with equipment, coaching and travel. Soon, he was wheeling up to the starting line in his first World Championship as part of the USA’s relay team.
The squad also included Tokyo Olympians Haley Batten and Blevins, as well as Keegan Swenson, who now dominates the gravel bike circuit, and Kate Courtney, whose gold at the 2018 World Championships ended a nearly decadelong drought for the Americans.
“I got to line up on a team with these superstars,” Amos said with awe.
Not one to get lost in the moment, he helped the team achieve a silver medal.
Amos will again find himself among superstars on Monday in a sport where no U.S. man has ever won a medal. UCI World Cup cross country leader Victor Koretzky will be trying to win on his home soil, while Switzerland’s two entrants will be Nino Schurter and Mathias Fluckiger, who rank second and third, respectively. Blevins ranks 11th, but after placing 14th in Tokyo, is considered among the favorites.
Given his inexperience, Amos is not often included in conversations about medal contenders. Still, both Wells and USA Cycling Mountain Biking Director Alec Pasqualina believe other competitors would be foolish to overlook him.
“(These Olympics are) experiential. He’s younger. But still, with the way that he’s riding and racing, it’s extremely impressive this year,” Pasqualina said. “I think he’s an absolute outside contender.
“It’s kind of a dangerous place to be when you’re this talented and you haven’t built pressure,” he said.
If Amos translates his talent into a medal in Paris, they’ll call him something that’s the same in both French and English: champion.
Julie Jag is a former sports reporter for The Durango Herald and now works at the Salt Lake Tribune. She is covering the Summer Olympics from Paris.
