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The Indiana Daily Student

sports little 500

Here are the qualifiers in this year’s Men’s and Women’s Little 500

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A jolt of energy has once again shocked Indiana University’s campus as anticipation grows for the “World’s greatest college weekend.” The Little 500 qualifiers competed on Saturday for placements in preparation for the April races.  

This marks the beginning of a month-long process of time trials that concludes with a 50-mile men’s race and 25-mile women’s race on April 21-22. 

The weekend’s qualifiers on the men’s side were, in order:  

1. Cutters 

2. Sigma Phi Epsilon 

3. Sigma Alpha Epsilon 

4. Alpha Kappa Psi 

5. Phi Kappa Psi

6. Phi Gamma Delta 

7. Chi Phi

8. Cinzano 

9. Human Wheels 

10. Alpha Sigma Phi 

11. Delta Tau Delta 

12. Pi Kappa Alpha 

13. Alpha Kappa Lambda 

14. Chi Alpha 

15. Gray Goat 

16. Ghost Cycling

17. Phi Sigma Kappa

18. Novus

19. CSF Cycling 

20. Beta Sigma Psi 

21. Sigma Nu 

22. 3PH Cycling 

23. Delta Sigma Pi 

24. Lambda Chi Alpha 

25. Forest Cycling 

26. Phi Delta Theta 

27. Evans Scholars 

28. Tau Epsilon Phi 

29. IUDM cycling 

30. Bears 

31. Wild Aces Cycling 

32. Army Cycling 

33. Beta Theta Pi

For the women’s group, the qualifiers were, in order:  

1. Alpha Chi Omega

2. Teter

3. Kappa Alpha Theta 

4. Independent Council

5. Kappa Delta 

6. Alpha Gamma Delta  

7. Delta Gamma 

8. Kappa Kappa Gamma 

9. CSF Cycling  

10. Theta Phi Alpha  

11. SKI 

12. Novus  

13. Melanzana Cycling

14. Cru Cycling

15. RideON Cycling 

16. Phi Gamma Nu

17. Delta Zeta

18. Alpha Omicron Pi

19. Gamma Phi Beta

20. Chi Omega

21. Bison Cycling

22. Phi Mu 

23. Sigma Kappa

24. Alpha Sigma Alpha

25. Alpha Delta Pi

26. Alpha Epsilon Phi

27. Sigma Delta Tau

The qualifiers consisted of a four-lap time trial featuring a bike transfer between teammates at the conclusion of every lap. The bikers must pass the bike inside of a designated transfer zone, which became the main area of difficulty for the bikers to do in an efficient manner. Failure to transfer would result in a fault and a restart. However, teams had three chances to successfully complete the trial, leading to all but five men’s teams qualifying, and all of the women’s teams qualifying. 

Leading the men’s heat was Cutters with a time of 2:26.549. Cutters is an experienced group, with multiple bikers previously competing in the event several times. Senior  
Torin Kray-Mawhorr talked about remaining composed and building off such a successful qualifier. 

“It’s all about mentality from here on out,” Kray-Mawhorr said after the time trials. “You don’t get much faster from this time forward, so it’s all about honing in your skills and making sure you’re calm and composed come race day.” 

Cutters’ top placement in qualifiers gives themselves elite poll position for Little 500 as they look to add another win to their prestigious record book, which includes 14 wins since 1984, with their most recent win in 2019. 

On the women’s side, Alpha Chi Omega walked away with the fastest time at 2:54.551, followed by Teter with the second fastest time of 2:55:771 and Kappa Alpha Theta with 2:59.22.

With many bikers losing two years of the event due to COVID-19, many participants were excited to get their first chance to finally compete in the event.  

“I’ve been training for four years, and I’ve never been able to have a race with covid and going abroad,” Theta Phi Alpha senior Marianna Toljan said. “Being able to actually qualify and put our best foot forward for the race is really exciting.” 

Theta Phi Alpha junior Riley Shorter added how special it was to place in the top 10 after graduating most of their team. 

“Before quals, we were hopeful but not sure how we were gonna compare after rebuilding the team, but within top 10 finish in qualifications is definitely exciting.” Shorter said. 

With razor-thin margins between many of the teams, including 3 teams in the men’s top ten separated by less than .3 seconds, it appears the 2023 Little 500 will be anyone’s race for the taking.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the top three times for the women's qualifying races due to a mistake made in the editing process in addition to misstating the number of wins in Cutters' history.

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