![\"Aine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DMT-L-AINECHEN-01.jpeg\")
Aine Chen, center, won the title in the women\u2019s 15-16 individual pursuit at the USA Cycling Junior Track National Championships. (Courtesy Maison Chen)<\/p>\nCarmel Valley\u2019s Aine Chen recently won two national titles at the USA Cycling Junior Track National Championships, including setting a national record.<\/p>\n
Aine, 15, won the chance to wear the special Stars and Stripes jersey at the national competition in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania in July, taking the title in the women\u2019s 15-16\u00a0 individual pursuit with a record 3 km time of 4:14.416. She also won the national title in the Junior Track Omnium for finishing in the top three in a series of events.<\/p>\n
Aine Chen, center, won the title in the women\u2019s 15-16 individual pursuit at the USA Cycling Junior Track National Championships. (Courtesy Maison Chen)<\/p>\n
While she has won titles on the track and on the road before, this was her first time winning the individual pursuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI raced on that track when I was 11 so it\u2019s been awhile since I\u2019ve been back on the track,\u201d said Aine, of the outdoor velodrome at The Valley Preferred Cycling Center, where she embraced the wind, humidity and intense speed. \u201cI really do love that track\u2026it\u2019s really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before her wins on the track, Aine also competed in June\u2019s USA Junior Road Cycling Nationals in Milwaukee, placing fifth in both the 36-mile road race and the criterium circuit.<\/p>\n
She arrived at the track nationals after spending a month cycling and training in Belgium, finishing on the podium a couple of times and earning several top 10 placings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly didn\u2019t expect to break the national record,\u201d said Aine, a junior at Canyon Crest Academy. \u201cI think just being able to stay consistent in my racing throughout the summer really helped at the Nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aine has been riding and racing since she was five years old, inspired by her cyclist dad Maison and her older sister Eire. Over the years the pair of sisters have trained side by side and racked up wins and national titles as they cycled through the age groups.<\/p>\n
![\"Aine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DMT-L-AINECHEN-02.jpeg\")
Aine Chen, left, took second at a race in Belgium, where she spent a month competing this summer. (Courtesy Masion Chen)<\/p>\n
Eire graduated this spring from Canyon Crest Academy and is headed straight to medical school at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. As she just left for school, Aine said it will definitely be a big change not having her big sister around.<\/p>\n
For track, Aine rides for the local competitive cycling team Ironfly, which includes training at the San Diego Velodrome in Balboa Park. For road, she represents with the San Diego Bicycle Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole summer I was away racing, I didn\u2019t make it home too much,\u201d Aine said.\u00a0 In between nationals, she was in Belgium with a group of other American junior cyclists in a camp run by Flanders Development Cycling\u2014they lived together and raced two to three times a week for four weeks. The longer races ranged from 40 to 50 miles, held on unique road courses in a country where Aine admits people are a lot more welcoming of cyclists than in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was super fun. There are a lot more girls who race in Belgium, so each race had like 80 to 90 people, which is a huge difference for me,\u201d said Aine, noting the numbers were double what she sees in the States. \u201cGetting experience like that really helped my performance in races here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aine is currently in her off-season. After she got home from track nationals she took a couple weeks off and went to Mammoth, where she got in some mountain biking. For the next few months, she will continue riding every day, cross-training and weightlifting as she gears up for next year\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
The \u201creal racing\u201d will start back up again in February as she begins her final two years in the junior category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carmel Valley\u2019s Aine Chen recently won two national titles at the USA Cycling Junior Track National Championships, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[310,9245,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-471923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-del-mar-times","tag-del-mar-times-sports","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}