Weekend Warriors: Lea Davison aims for an Olympic medal, while teaching girls how to ride bikes
ESPNW—As mountain biker Lea Davison prepares for her second Olympics, two things give her peace of mind. First, this isn’t her first rodeo, er, singletrack. As a wide-eyed newbie in London four years ago, the Jericho, Vermont native never expected to medal and was happy with her 11th-place finish. Now, with a silver medal from this month’s UCI 2016 Mountain Bike World Championships in the Czech Republic, she’s feeling much more confident going into Rio.
The second calming thought is knowing that no matter what happens at the Games in August, the 33-year-old already has an enormous fan base of 7- to 16-year-old girls — girls who’ve learned mountain biking as part of the nonprofit Davison created called Little Bellas.
