Craddock and the USA Cycling Junior Development Team ride onto the podium at Paris-Roubaix

Roubaix, France (April 11, 2010) – Lawson Craddock (Houston, Texas/Hot Tubes) scored a major international victory for the USA Cycling Junior Development Program, finishing third in Sunday’s Junior Paris-Roubaix. Supported by five teammates, Craddock led a late-race, four-man break into the Roubaix velodrome before sprinting to third in the season’s first junior Nations Cup.

Coming off his a stage one time trial victory at last week’s Ster van Zuid Limberg, Craddock, last year’s Junior World Championship Time Trial silver-medalist, also qualified for automatic nomination to this year’s Junior Road World Championship squad with the result. Following a strong showing at last week’s race in the Limburg section of Belgium, the entire squad of 17-18 year-olds continue to show steady improvement.

“This is a great result for the entire team and is definitely a reflection of the entire group coming together to learn to work as a unit,” stated USA Cycling’s Junior Programs Manager Benjamin Sharp. “Everyone was involved with this podium and I’m very pleased with the result. The level of our juniors goes up every year and I’m very excited to see what comes next.”

Helping Craddock to his podium performance, three of his teammates also finished in the top 20: Ryan Eastman (Petaluma, Calif./All-Sport-Team Swift) in 13th, Peter Taylor (Walnut Creek, Calif./Team Specialized Racing) 17th, and Juan Carmona (Breinigsville, Pa./Young Medalists-Team Dual Temp) in 20th. Also riding for the USA Cycling Junior Development team, David Kessler (Littleton, Colo.) came in 54th and Matt Lipscomb (Decatur, Ga./Hincapie Development Team) 60th.

For full results from one of the most prestigious junior races in the world, click here. To read Coach Benjamin Sharp’s account of the action in the historic junior Paris-Roubaix, click here.

While this block of racing is complete for this group of young men, the USA Cycling Junior Development Program will move on to field teams in the upcoming Course de la Paix in the Czech Republic, 3-Etappen der Rad in Germany, Claamse Ardennen in Belgium, Tour du Pays Vaud in Switzerland and Trofeo Karlsberg in Germany.