Chi Omega’s Doll wins the women’s ITT

For Aryn Doll, Whitney Houston did the trick.

While the Chi Omega rider was warming up before taking the track for her Individual Time Trial run, Doll’s student coach was playing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” to pump her up.

Doll said she didn’t consider the ballad written by Dolly Parton much of a pump-up song. She would have preferred a more up-beat, electric dance music song before the race.

But after winning the women’s Individual Time Trial on Saturday with a time of 2:40.01, Doll admitted “I Will Always Love You” wasn’t too bad of a music choice after all.

“I guess Whitney Houston worked,” Doll said.

Doll narrowly edged out Collins Cycling’s Tabitha Sherwood (2:40.52) for the ITT crown. The top four seeded women were all placed in the same heat and produced the four fastest times of the day.

Because she was going up against the top returning riders, Doll said she knew the heat was going to be tough. She said she put extra emphasis on getting off to a good start to her run during practice leading up to the race that she believes made the difference in edging out Sherwood by just more than half a second.

“You can gain a ton of time on the start,” Doll said. “I figured if I started good, I would be able to have a good time, so I really focused on it and it paid off. I started well and put in a good time.”

Rounding out the top five were Alpha Chi Omega’s Kelsey Tharnstrom (2:41.48), Teter’s Emma Caughlin (2:41.58) and Kappa Alpha Theta’s Brenna McGinn (2:42.97).
Though Doll’s top time was slightly slower than last year’s best time, the top of the leaderboard was noticeably faster this year.

Five riders road better times than 2:43, a feat only two women managed to do last year.

Caughlin, who improved on her personal time this year by four and a half seconds, credited almost ideal track conditions and a number of younger riders unexpectedly showing quick pace for the abundance of quick times.

“It’s surprising to see these times because a lot of these are new riders,” Caughlin said. “These

rookies have been awesome. It was all really close and I’m happy with my time, happy with the track today — it was super quick.”

Alpha Chi Omega, led by Tharnstrom’s third place finish, claimed the ITT Spring Series component with three finishers in the top 10 to take provisional control of the white jersey standings.

But for Doll and her Chi Omega teammates, capturing the ITT crown helps the team build confidence.

 Chi Omega had two riders miss time this year with mononucleosis and qualified for the race on a third attempt with only three riders.

To be able to celebrate the ITT win was a relief for Doll after an otherwise hectic Spring.

“We’ve had a tough year,” Doll said. “To be able to come out and put this time down, it gives us a lot of confidence. The time was good and the track was fast.
“I’m just happy for my team.”

An earlier version of this story had Brenna McGinn's name mistakenly spelled "Brennan."