A special salute to retiring road pro Coryn Labecki was chronicled in a film, "One To Go", by her trade team EF Education-Oatly-Cannondale and released on the team's YouTube channel on Tuesday.
The 21-minute film, part of the EF Pro Cycling's Explore series with support from Wahoo, covered her 21 seasons as an amateur and pro cyclist with a spotlight on her final pro appearance, the Bucks County Classic in early September in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
"This is where I started and this is where it ends," Labecki said to the camera, as she hoisted her bike over a barrier to line up in a criterium, the Doylestown Health Pro 1/2 women's contest.
"It is a little bittersweet for sure, but I know it's time. It's just nice to close it out at a crit in the stars-and-stripes. I just want to celebrate and put on a good show."
Labecki began her dominance on a bike at age 11, one that elevated her petite stature of 1.55 metres (5 feet 1 inch height) to lofty heights over 10 amateur and 11 pro seasons racing for three teams. Her first national title came in 2004 in the 1km Scratch race at junior track championships. In 2006 as a 13-year-old, she took nine gold medals in nationals on the track, road and cyclocross.
As a professional, Labecki won the overall at the Women's Tour and RideLondon Classique as well as a stage at the Giro d'Italia Women and the Tour of California. For Team USA, she represented competed in eight editions of the UCI Road World Championships, and at the Tokyo Olympic Games, where she finished seventh in the road race. She remains the only US woman to have won the Tour of Flanders, or Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"I always say I'm just a bike racer. That's what I feel like I do the best, I figure out my way to get there first. I just love putting my hands up in the air and getting a 'w'."
She did that well, collecting 74 national titles across multiple disciplines. In a cameo clip from racing on the track as a junior, she summed up her goals as, "first place is the only place I like to get".
From her childhood residence in Tustin, California in the film, family members gave a virtual tour of the multitude of medals, photos and championship jerseys adorning the home, which is known as the 'museum'. Cycling was always a family affair, her father competing in mountain biking and then moving to the road where a young Coryn took over for her mother on a tandem for recreational centuries.
"I will miss watching her. The time difference is hard but I would wake up really early just to watch her and I will be cheering on livestream," said Coryn's mother Lina Rivera. "She's so little, but she can do pretty much everything."
In 2011 at Ladies Tour of Qatar, Labecki said she had a bad crash and decided to attend college rather than move full-time as a pro cyclist. She was part of the collegiate cycling team at Marian University in Indiana.
"I learned a lot about myself, a lot about cycling. I really enjoyed that time," she recalled, getting a little emotional. It was at Marian where she met her now-husband, Nate Labecki, who was also on the cycling team.
She had many 'lasts' as she exited this part of her career as a racer, including a final contest in Europe on July 30 at Kreiz Breizh Elites Féminin. For her, the ultimate curtain call came in Pennsylvania, where she now resides with Nate and their dog Tank.
While the 32-year-old didn't win in Doylestown, finishing 18th, she did go out a winner at her final US Pro Road National Championships, using a dominant sprint to retain the elite women's pro criterium title. Her teammates all added video farewells in 'One To Go', which was dedicated to her father Wally, who died of COVID-19 in March 2021.
"I've always been someone who leads by example. When I'm on the bike, I can speak volumes," she said. "It's time to close that chapter and move on. 74 national titles and a lot of good friends along the way. I think I had a dream career."
