Carney Brothers Wow The Crowd -- New Jersey Cyclists Win Madison Title

REDMOND - J-Me excels at track cycling. His specialty is the sprint.

Brother Jonas' expertise is the road race - the longer and hillier, the better.

But together, as a team, the Carney brothers from Annandale, N.J., are a potent force, either on road or track.

Last night, J-Me, 22, and Jonas, 20, wowed a crowd of more than 1,500 at Redmond's Marymoor Velodrome by winning the Madison points race at the conclusion of the U.S. Track Cycling Championships.

They did not walk away with the gold medal for the Madison. They took it by storm.

The Madison, which made its debut as a sanctioned national cycling race last night, is named after New York's Madison Square Garden, where cycling teams in the early 1900s raced day and night for six straight days.

Today's version of the Madison is tamer and shorter, but still tough.

Last night's inaugural race pitted 16 two-man relay teams, racing 100 laps over the 400-meter Marymoor track, each team sprinting for points every fifth lap.

The Carney brothers, calling themselves the T-Town Team, began to dominate early in the race. By lap 75, the Carneys had won all but one sprint. With the points they had amassed, victory seemed certain, although a Madison also can be won by a team that laps the field of other riders.

With 15 laps remaining, Matt Hamon and Brett Reagon of Team Colorado overtook the field but failed to close the gap on their competition a second time.

"They really had us worried until about eight laps to go, then we knew they could not make it," J-Me said.

Last night's Madison victory earned both brothers berths at the Pan Am Games in Havana next month. And J-Me, who won gold medals in earlier team-pursuit and points races, also will fly directly from Cuba to the World Cycling Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

"There's a chance Jonas will go to Stuttgart, too, for the road championships. But that's up to the coach," J-Me said.

In the tandem sprint event, Erin Hartwell of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Marty Nothstein of Trexlertown, Pa., won the gold.

However, the races were marred in the semifinal heat when the front fork of the tandem ridden by Paul Swift and Trever Silvera broke loose from the bike's frame, hurtling both riders at 40 mph onto the track and the front wheel onto the infield.

Medics treated Silvera at the scene for abrasions. Swift was taken by ambulance to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, where he was treated and released.

Because of the accident, bronze medals were awarded automatically to the tandem team of Vincent Oliver and Kirk Whiteman, both of New York.

Sean Tulley of San Diego and Bart Bell of Katy, Texas, received the silver medal.

The Silvera-Swift accident was the second during six days of competition.

Six people, including a track official and a photographer, were injured Saturday night when two riders in the senior men's points race collided and crashed in the final turn of lap 99.

One rider injured Saturday, Jim Robinson of Greenbrae, Calif., spent the night at Overlake Hospital with a broken collarbone.

U.S. Cycling Federation officials reviewed a videotape of the accident yesterday and announced that two riders - Brian McDonough, who was to receive a silver medal, and Chris Bevan, who was to receive a bronze - were disqualified for their roles in the accident.

Instead, the silver was awarded to Adam Laurent of Arroyo Grande, Calif., and the bronze to Matt Hamon, of Colorado Springs.

Attendance for the six-day event was 13,000, about 9,000 short of predictions.

"It could have been the economy or the weather. We really don't know," said Dave Shaw, track director.

This was the fourth year the track cycling championships have taken place at Marymoor. The velodrome also will be the site of the U.S. Masters Track Cycling Championships in 1992, Shaw said.