American Taylor Phinney, the 2007 world junior time trial champion, set a new world junior pursuit record Monday at the ADT Event Center velodrome in Carson, California.

Phinney’s time of 3:16.589 in the 3000-meter individual pursuit broke Australian Michael Ford’s four-year-old record of 3:17.775. It was the first world record set at the ADT Event Center — the same track where Phinney won a pursuit World Cup in January.

Phinney's World Cup pursuit times qualified him for an automatic nomination to the U.S. Olympic track squad. Although already chosen for the team, Phinney, who turns 18 on June 27, was training in Los Angeles with USA Cycling’s Olympic team selection camp.

Because the Olympic pursuit qualifying and finals events will be held over two days, rather than the customary one-day World Cup and world championship format, Phinney and his coach Neal Henderson chose to simulate the two-day effort in Los Angeles. Henderson said the Olympic simulation was for practicality purposes rather than physical preparation.

“It was more about figuring out the warm up, the eating schedule, things like that,” said Henderson, the coordinator of Sport Science for the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.

When they realized Phinney was riding faster than ever, Henderson and Phinney’s Olympian parents, Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter, looked into bringing in UCI officials and USADA drug-testing officials to ratify the world-record attempt.

“Based on how fast Taylor rode last Wednesday, we looked into setting the official world record,” Henderson said. “We’re very happy. The way he looked at camp was exciting after 10 weeks off the track. Last Tuesday he looked smooth, and on Wednesday morning he put down a good 3000-meter effort. His performance confirmed that everything we are doing to bring him up for Beijing is working. His progression has been remarkable and he is continuing that upward rise.”

In March Phinney set a 3000-meter time of 3:17.523 during the elite world 4000-meter pursuit championship in Manchester, England. Phinney’s ride topped the previous junior 3000-meter time by a quarter-second, but the record was not ratified after UCI officials ruled a junior record could not be set during a 4000-meter senior elite event. And though he set a personal best time of 4:22.358, his ride was only good enough for eighth at the world championship event.

Phinney had hoped to race in the June 24-29 $150,000 UCI 2.2 under-25 American Eagle Outfitters Tour of Pennsylvania, where the opening 4km prologue would have suited his strengths perfectly, but his participation was rejected due to his junior classification.

Instead, Henderson said, Phinney will train and motorpace in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, before he heads to Cape Town, South Africa, for the July 12 world junior track championship and July 18 world junior time trial championship.

From South Africa, Phinney and Henderson will travel to Bordeaux, France, to prepare for the Olympics alongside several members of New Zealand’s national track team. Finally, Phinney and Henderson will head to Beijing for the August 15-16 Olympic individual pursuit.

“Achieving this mark was one of my goals when I started my Olympic training this year,” Phinney said. “As our team prepares for Beijing, I couldn’t be more proud to set this record. I’m excited to represent the United States in the Olympics.”

Lea, Blatchford meet automatic nomination criteria for Beijing

Already set to earn an automatic nomination to the Olympic team in the women's match sprint because of her bronze medal performance at the world championships in Manchester, world keirin champion Jennie Reed also attended the camp to attempt world records in two events — the flying 200- and 500-meter time trials.

Reed fell just short in the 500-meter distance, recording a time of 29.662 seconds, just 0.007 seconds off the world record pace of 29.655 set by Erika Salumae of the Soviet Union in 1987. The performance was, however, a new U.S. national record.

In the 200-meter distance, Reed clocked an 11.490, a mark that was well off the 10.831-second record set by Olga Slyusareva in 1993. With a trip to Beijing already secure as a world championship medalist, Reed's 200-meter time did however eclipse the automatic time standard of 11.610 seconds to warrant an automatic nomination.

For several other men's sprint and endurance athletes, the camp served as a selection event with riders looking to meet automatic time standards that would yield a ticket to Beijing. Of the seven other participants, Bobby Lea and Michael Blatchford recorded the fastest times in their respective qualifying events.

Endurance athletes contested a 3000-meter mass start test designed to select an automatic qualifier for the points and Madison events. Although three of the athletes surpassed the time standards, Lea met the automatic nomination criteria as the fastest. Lea clocked a time of 29.525 seconds over the race's first 500 meters and finished with a 3000-meter time of 3:17.648. Both marks easily surpassed USA Cycling's time standard of 30.670 seconds and 3:22.420 respectively.

Mike Friedman and Brad Huff also met both time standards, but under USA Cycling's selection procedures, only Lea met the criteria for an automatic nomination to compete in the points race and Madison in Beijing as the fastest of the three over 3000 meters. Friedman rode a 30.359/3:24.229, while Huff rode a 30.466/3:21.740 to eclipse the time standards.

In two attempts, 2004 Olympian Colby Pearce failed to finish under the time standard with 30.427/3:23.657 the fastest of his two performances.

In the sprint events Blatchford rode a 250-meter time trial in 17.973 seconds as the only athlete to meet the automatic time standard for the three-man team sprint squad. Giddeon Massie rode an 18.297 and Adam Duvendeck clocked an 18.791 — neither eclipsing the 18.010-second time standard.

Blatchford, Massie, Duvendeck and Lea also contested the flying 200-meter sprint with the hopes of earning an automatic nomination to contest the match sprint and keirin in Beijing. None of the four athletes met the 10.380-second time standard however. In two attempts, Blatchford's fastest time was a 10.520. Massie's 10.573 was his fastest, while Duvendeck recorded a 10.656 and Lea an 11.106 for their quickest marks.

This week's selection camp put the Olympic track cycling squad into focus and illustrated the recent strides taken by a vastly improved national team program. With Phinney, Reed and Sarah Hammer set to earn automatic nominations based on earlier performances in international competition this year, Lea and Blatchford are poised to join them by meeting the automatic nomination criteria over the last two days.

“The performances by our athletes over the course of these last couple of days are a good sign of things to come,” said Pat McDonough, USA Cycling Director of Athletics. “The determination and intensity of the competition this week is indicative of how far our track program has come since 2004. To have five athletes meet demanding time standards less than two months from the Olympics means everyone is raising their game for when it matters the most.”

USA Cycling will announce the remaining discretionary selections to the track cycling squad on July 1.