Anna Yamauchi is a rookie on the women’s scorecard of the 2023 Life Time Grand Prix presented by Mazda, one of 20 new women competing in the seven-race off-road series for a share in a $250,000 total prize purse. Before the first bumps and barges on the singletrack at Sea Otter Classic’s Fuego XL 100K this Saturday, Yamauchi is already an imposing contender for the second running of the Grand Prix.
Imposing for her technical abilities on a mountain bike more so than her stature, the 5-foot 4-inch California native parlayed her love for skiing into a newfound joy and job on the bike. In her third year of racing bikes, she’s soared to the win this year in Bakersfield at Rock Cobbler and podiums at Belgian Waffle Ride Arizona and Cactus Cup.
In 2021 she won a collegiate mountain bike race in Monterrey, and last year she was 13th at Sea Otter’s Fuego XL 80K MTB, but was not among the riders taking part in the Life Time Grand Prix. This year, she’s a contender for the longer Fuego XL and top points in the Grand Prix.
“Sea Otter, I have done before, and I can be strong there. I grew up on loose, sandy gravel in Truckee, so it’s similar,” Yamauchi told Cyclingnews about lining up in Monterey, a little more than 140 miles north of where she attends California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.
“After finding some more success this season with two second places at BWR AZ and Cactus Cup, I’m excited to bring this momentum and confidence into Sea Otter while racing against a stacked and fast field! Should be a whole lot of fun and eager to start the Grand Prix season.”
The US-based off-road racing series expanded their invitation-only roster from 60 to 70 athletes for 2023, the numbers divided evenly for pro women and pro men competing across seven events. Riders tally series points at each race, the best results from five of the seven counting towards the final standings.
“Life Time is the best testing ground to learn from the best girls in the US. Being so new in the sport and being able to race at such a high level is a great opportunity. To race the Grand Prix was something I couldn’t pass up,” she said.
Last year at Fuego XL, which was 20 kilometres shorter than this year’s 100km distance, Yamauchi rode between big-time competitors that included Katerina Nash, Kaysee Armstrong and Sarah Sturm, who finished just in front of her, while other Grand Prix riders Melisa Rollins and Emily Newsom followed behind in her dust. But those names don’t phase her.
Ski racing turns to bike racing
Yamauchi was born in Chicago and began ski racing in elementary school on small hills in nearby Wisconsin, then moved to “the good stuff” in California at age 12 when the family, her father of Japanese descent, moved to Truckee, Calif. She progressed as a downhill ski racer, then added mountain biking in high school, riding in an inaugural National Interscholastic Cycling Association event in Nevada as a junior as a “fun new thing” because her mother was a coach.
The last two years of high school she moved to cross-country running and big mountain skiing, a judged sport that rewards competitors on creativity and execution with lines and air. She even tried snowboard racing, soccer, swimming and played one year on the men’s tennis team.
“I loved skiing, but my senior year, I broke my femur skiing. I had qualified for Junior Worlds and had a plane ticket to Austria,” Yamauchi calmly admitted but shrugged off the disappointment. She used the mountain bike as part of her recovery. ”I put the skis away and started surfing and then biking more.”
Her first big mountain bike race came in 2021 at Tahoe Trail 100, and she opted to race the 100 instead of the planned 50. “I was thrown in the thick of it. I had a ton of fun and finished third overall.”
In her first race with the collegiate team at Cal Poly in the fall of 2021, she won a mountain bike race at Sea Otter, then she went to Durango for Collegiate Nationals and scored three podiums across cross-country, short track XC and downhill events.
“Recently, cycling has exploded at Cal Poly. It’s a great community,” she admitted, and she hasn’t looked back at other sports for serious competition.
Starting the 2023 season near home at the Grasshopper adventure series opener in January, Low Gap, Yamauchi was the closest rider to the women’s leader and eventual winner, 2018 MTB World Champion Kate Courtney, but Yamauchi went off course and was disqualified for not correcting the error before the finish. At her next race, Rock Cobbler, Yamauchi “was able to use my technical skills and pedal hard” and took the victory.
She’s just 23 and is one of the youngest competitors in the field of 70 Life Time Grand Prix men and women. Set to collect her degree in architectural engineering degree from Cal Poly in June, she's not sure if she can juggle the final weeks of school to race Unbound Gravel, and said she was "still working with professors to see how difficult it would be to miss."
From the books to the bike, look for her to get high marks on the first stop of the Grand Prix.
