Stephane Girard, who has served as USA Cycling's National Mountain Bike Coach for the past three seasons, has resigned to move back to France with his family, USA Cycling Director of Athlete Performance Sean Petty announced Monday. Girard will move to France at the end of the year.

"Moving to the United States and working with USA Cycling has been a great experience, but extensive travels and life away from your home country is always hard on your family life. This why I have decided to resign my position and move back to France. My kids are young and they need me to spend more time with them. I think I helped USA Cycling to start building some strong mountain bike programs, and I'm sure they will keep working in this direction to make America one of the best mountain bike nations. Working with the U.S. athletes has been a pleasure and an honor, I would like to thank them all, with a very special thanks to Ruthie Matthes, Leigh Donovan and Steve Larsen," said Girard.

"We will really miss Stephane. He was a pioneer for USA Cycling as the first national mountain bike coach. Stephane has made a huge impact on the success and development of our present and future mountain bikers. We want to thank him for his contributions to USA Cycling. Finally, I respect and admire Stephane's decision to spend more time with his wife and two beautiful children," said Petty.

During his tenure in that position, Girard established the initial national mountain bike camps, developed a national program for mountain biking in the United States and helped establish the resident-athlete program for mountain bikers at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Among the athletes he worked with included 2000 junior world mountain biker Walker Ferguson, who participated in the first national mountain bike camp. Other athletes that have worked with Girard include national cross-country champions Donovan, Larsen and Matthes, along with junior and espoir national titlist Jess Swiggers and Matt Kelly, who placed sixth at the 1999 junior world championships.

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— Courtesy of USA Cycling