Paris 2024
Olympic Games
The Paris Olympics marked the best Olympic Games in USA Cycling's history since 1984.
Thank you to our partners for supporting USA Cycling. As a member of USA Cycling, you can get access to hundreds of discounts!
Brendan Quirk first raced a bike in 1986 and has been a USA Cycling member ever since. He's raced at every age level -- Junior, Collegiate, Elite, and Masters. His passion for the sport pulled him into the cycling industry in the mid-'90s and led him to start Competitive Cyclist in 2000, serving as CEO while turning it into North America's largest eCommerce cycling business.
He later served as Executive Vice President for Backcountry.com, then President of North America for Rapha. In 2018 he went to work as the Cycling Program Director for the Runway Group, where he helped efforts to transform Northwest Arkansas into one of America's foremost cycling destinations.
His experience in race promotion spans local events as well as international ones. He created the Ronde van Burns -- a longstanding, weeknight summer criterium series in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He also served on the organizing committee of the 2022 UCI Cyclocross World Championships.
Brendan divides his time between Little Rock and Colorado Springs. He has three children, two dogs, and nine bikes.
A successful professional cyclist in his own right, Jim coached several cyclists on the side and eventually retired from racing in 1999 to focus solely on his flourishing coaching career. After developing several notable cyclists, he originally came to USA Cycling to run the women’s road program in 2002. After earning Coach of the Year distinctions from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee in 2003 & 2004, Jim was promoted to director of endurance programs, overseeing the development of American junior, U23, and women endurance athletes in road and track cycling. After making significant strides toward the USA Cycling National Development Program’s goal of developing the next generation of American cyclists, he was named Vice President of Athletics in 2010. In 2017, Jim left USA Cycling to become the Vice President of Business Development for Training Peaks. Unable to resist the Olympic call, he returned to USA Cycling in 2020 as the Chief of Sport Performance. He has earned the International Olympic Committee’s highest honor for coaches, the Order of Ikkos, three times, all for coaching 3-time Olympic Champion Kristen Armstrong to victory.
Jamie Staff leads USA Cycling’s BMX Racing and Freestyle programs. Born in Ashford, Kent, England, Jamie raced BMX for 20 years winning the World Championships in 1996. In 2001, he turned to Track racing in the pursuit of the Olympic Games. His transition appeared to be seamless qualifying for Team Great Britain's sprint program in his first attempt. At the Commonwealth Games, he rode to silver in the Team Sprint, broke the National 200m Record, and rode to bronze in the Kilometer. Less than a year into track racing, he helped Team GB win gold in the Team Sprint at the 2002 UCI Track World Championships. In 2004, he became the Keirin World Champion and punched his ticket to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. It wasn't until the next Olympics that Staff would walk away with a medal. Not only did he win several medals in the World Championship and Commonwealth Games in the next four years, but he would win gold in the Team Sprint trio and break the World Record at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
After 7 years on the track, he turned to coaching. At the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, under Staff's direction, USA Cycling’s BMX program won its first gold medal, a silver medal, and recorded two fourth place finishes. With the introduction of BMX Freestyle to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic schedule, Staff took over that program. BMX Freestyle won its first medal in the sports debut with silver.
Tanner Putt comes to USA Cycling after eight years as a professional road cyclist, five years on the USA Cycling National Team, and experience directing a domestic elite road team. In 2022, Tanner worked as the USA Cycling U23 National Team Director at Tour de l'Avenir and the Road World Championships. He became the full-time Director of Road in January 2023.
With his 15 years of combined competitive and coaching experience, passion for athlete development, and extensive knowledge of top-level racing, Tanner will support USA Cycling with growing opportunities for the next generation of riders and creating a deeper pool of talent in the U.S. Tanner grew up in Park City, UT, and is now based in Colorado with his wife and two dogs.
Alec joined USA Cycling in early 2021 to kickstart the Olympic Development Academy, USA Cycling’s redesigned development program across all cycling disciplines. Alec is a former professional mountain bike and cyclocross racer who participated in previous iterations of USA Cycling’s development programming bringing firsthand knowledge and experience to USA Cycling. In addition to coaching athletes of all disciplines on the side, Alec spent nearly three years working for TrainingPeaks where he contributed to product enhancements, data analysis, coaching education, and customer retention. With coaching experience, product knowledge, and firsthand experiences, Alec plans to leverage his knowledge to help grow USA Cycling.
A native of Danville, Calif., Alec studied Communication Studies, Political Science, and Entrepreneurial Leadership at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. He now resides in Boulder, Colorado.
Craig returns to USA Cycling in the role of Senior Track Director. He brings 33 years of elite coaching experience leading Track Endurance programs for USA Cycling, U.S. Paralympics, Canada, Japan National and Olympic Teams. He brings a wealth of knowledge and high achievement as an 8-time Olympic coach with numerous podium successes. In 1994, Craig coached the US Men’s Pursuit Team to an historic first ever World Championship medal. He led the U.S. Paralympic Team to win the cycling nations medal count at the London 2012 Paralympic Games and was awarded Team USA's highest coaching recognition award, the Order of Ikkos, as well as coaching athletes to Olympic medals for Canada (Rio 2016) and Japan (Tokyo 2020). Craig has a critical eye for high performance environments and athlete development using a blend of hard earned practical experience and acumen to develop world class programming for sustained competitive excellence. Prior to his first national coaching job with USA Cycling in 1990, Craig competed for Team New Zealand on both the road and track teams. Craig is thrilled to be back in Colorado Springs with his family and is looking forward to the challenge of improving upon the international successes of USA Cycling’s track program.
Gary leads the women’s endurance track program at USA Cycling. With more than 25 years of coaching experience, Sutton has a distinctive track record in the sport. Most recently, he was the Women's Track Endurance Coach for Cycling Australia, serving in that role since 2010 and achieving international success at the highest level with multiple athletes across multiple events. Highly respected for his technical skills, Gary is equally praised for his commitment to individual athletes and focus on developing good people – not just great athletes. Prior to coaching, he was an outstanding elite cyclist in his own right having competed in the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Games and winning the amateur World Championship in the Points Race. Gary is based at the USA Cycling headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Jono Hailstone, a seasoned cycling coach since 2010, began his career with the New Zealand Junior Men’s road team, achieving notable successes at international events. He later transitioned to the New Zealand Para-Cycling program, earning medals at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and leading athletes to multiple World Championship titles throughout the years.
Jono then worked with the Women’s Endurance program at Cycling New Zealand before taking the opportunity to be the head coach for Cycling Canada’s Men’s Endurance team. He secured achievements such as a bronze medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and qualified the first Canadian Men’s Team Pursuit to the Olympics in 45 years. Notably, the team recorded their best result in 89 years at the Tokyo Olympics.
In 2023, he joined USA Cycling to take on a similar mission: creating an Olympic-caliber Men’s Endurance program for Team USA.
Ryan Nyquist is an American professional BMX rider with 16 X-Games medals, 39 X-Games competition starts and 60 Dew Tour finals appearances (most all-time). Ryan is considered one of the greatest and diversely skilled BMX riders ever. Now, Ryan has taken on a new challenge and joined the USA Cycling BMX Freestyle team as a coach where he is leading a team to the Olympic Games.
Medina joined the organization in March 2023 to run the USA Cycling BMX Racing National Team program. Medina has raced BMX since 1983, and was one of the first pioneers of the sport to start bringing science based training to the early years of BMX Racing in Colombia.
Medina previously worked for the Colombian Olympic Committee from 2007-2022 coaching the BMX Racing team since the sports Olympic debut in 2008. Over the past four Olympic Games, the Colombian BMX Team has raced to six Olympic medals under his guidance, including two gold medals won by Mariana Pajon.
Kelsey joined USA Cycling as the SafeSport Director in May 2019. Prior to her appointment at USA Cycling, she spent nearly a decade of work in the international anti-doping community. As a student and professional at Leeds Beckett University (UK), Kelsey led and supported multiple global anti-doping research projects, receiving funding from such organizations as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Athletics Foundation (IAF). Her research focused primarily on developing evidence-based anti-doping education interventions and whistleblowing policies and procedures. To do so, she was particularly interested in raising the athletes’ voice and underlining the complexity of doping and whistleblowing in sport. Kelsey’s unique background paved the way for her to assume her current role at USA Cycling, where she is focused on developing and implementing programs aimed at providing holistic and long-term support, development and protection to USA Cycling members. Her career is motivated by the desire to constantly raise the bar in sporting integrity and athlete welfare practices and procedures from the local event to the international peloton.
Kelsey completed her BA in Psychology at Biola University (La Mirada, CA) as a scholarship student-athlete (basketball). She then received her MSc and PhD in Sport and Exercise Psychology from Leeds Beckett University (Leeds, UK) where she was a student-athlete in volleyball.
