May Britt

An Olympian, world championship medalist, and a women’s Tour de France participant, May Britt Våland has a storied history in cycling that began in 1979 at the age of eleven. A native of Norway, she was raised on the proverbial farm in fjord country, earning the gifts of grit, dedication, and fortitude that would carry her across the roads and tracks of international cycling.

A dominant national and European road rider in the mid-1990′s, she was a member of the Norwegian National Team between 1985 and 1996, rode the women’s Tour d’ Féminine, and represented Norway in multiple world track cycling championships. After years of hard work, in 1995 May Britt finally ascended a world championship podium when she captured a bronze medal in the 3000m Pursuit at the World Track Cycling Championships in Bogotá, Colombia, setting Norwegian and Scandinavian records en-route. In 1996, she finished ninth at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia in the same event. She retired from cycling at the end of 1996.

After an eight-year layoff from competitive sports, May Britt made a triumphant return to cycling, taking the call to work with Norway’s Paralympic cycling program in 2004. Driving a tandem in the women’s B1-3 class, May Britt and her sight-impaired teammate earned fourth in 3K Pursuit and a fifth place finish in the 1K Time Trial at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece, in turn, stunning the traditional heavyweights of the Paralympic community. May Britt’s participation with the Paralympic experience reignited her desire to give back to the            cycling community by helping other athletes achieve their Olympic Dreams.

In 2005, May Britt founded the Young Medalists high performance cycling program geared to indentifying, educating, and training junior athletes for elite competition. The Young Medalists is also a developmental program that provides a highly structured and systematic approach to preparing young cyclists for road and track competition through the integration of supervised on-the-bike training sessions with periodized sport-specific strength and endurance training plans.

In 2007, May Britt expanded her Young Medalists program as part of the continued growth of Elite Athlete Services, Inc.—an athlete coaching, consultation, and management company founded by her husband, Erin Hartwell.  In tandem with her work as an EAS, Inc. coach and consultant, May Britt formed the non-profit Lehigh Valley Cycling Club, Inc. (Young Medalists Racing Team) that allowed her to expand her work with youth and junior cyclists in the Lehigh Valley.