Cycling: Corte Madera’s ‘Comet’ Yoslov riding for gold

Hayley Yoslov has ridden her bike to the top of some challenging mountains, but right now, she’s practically on top of the world.

The Corte Madera cyclist on Tuesday was officially named to the Team USA roster for the 2025 UCI Track World Championships, set to take place at the Santiago Velodrome on Oct. 22-26 in Santiago, Chile. She is joined by Kayla Hankins, Emily Hayes and McKenna McKee. For Yoslov, who will compete in the 1,000-meter time trial and team sprint, this will be her first World Championships appearance after emerging from USA Cycling’s Search for Speed talent identification program.

“It would be cool,” the former Branson School mountain bike team standout said looking ahead to the selection. “Making the team would mark two years exactly since I started track cycling, and that would be exciting.”

“Hayley the Comet” is coming off a record-setting win with Hankins and Hayes in the Women’s Team Sprint during the USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships at the Colorado Springs Velodrome in August. With Yoslov racing the anchor leg, the trio finished with a time of 1 minute, 04.485 seconds to secure the victory and set the mark on Day 3 of the Nationals, finishing just over 2 seconds faster than the silver medalists.

It’s been a busy year for Yoslov, who won gold with Hankins and Hayes in the Team Sprint at the Pan-American Games in Asuncion, Paraguay, in April. At the same games, she took silver in the 1 km time trial with a national team record of 1:08.518.

“This is a big year to show that we are making the progress necessary to be in contention for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games,” Yoslov said.

Yoslov has made considerable strides in an unfamiliar sport. She grew up in Marin County, birthplace of mountain biking. The trails around Northern California — at Stafford Lake, Granite Bay and others — could be rough and muddy. The rides were long, with steep hills and tight turns, and she was more likely to hear a cow bell than the bell lap.

“My older brother was more on an Olympic path most my life in sailing,” Yoslov said. “I was more of an academic, but I love mountain biking. It was meditating for me. I never thought someone could make it big in the sport, but I worked my butt off to succeed in the high school leagues.”

But then Yoslov was introduced to USA Cycling’s Search for Speed, a recruitment program that identifies young talent and spreads the word about track sprint cycling.

“Track cycling is a little unexpected. This is not something I planned to pursue or explore,” Yoslov said. “Riding a mountain bike led me to the Search for Speed. I wasn’t sure about going to college in Los Angeles. I wasn’t sure about track cycling. I was just taking opportunities as they arose.”

Yoslov admits, “I didn’t know track sprint cycling was a sport until I was recruited to it.”

The competitive nature and love of cycling made Yoslov a natural fit for the USA Cycling program, but there was a period of adjustment.

“Mountain biking and track cycling are completely different sports,” Yoslov said. “I thought they’d translate more. My coach teases me that I still look like a mountain biker on the track sometimes.”

In Yoslov’s specialty on the track, the pressure is like the charge to the finish line during a mountain bike race, with the field bearing down on her wheels. On the track in the 1,000 meter time trial or “Kilo”, she has to muscle up her bike from a dead start to 40 mph in less than a minute during a race against the clock that can mean the difference between gold and disappointment.

“This journey has satisfied my need for competition,” Yoslov said of the transition to track sprint cycling.

Now Yoslov, a student at UCLA, has a chance to be an ambassador for her sport, and for Marin County, at the World Championships, with a chance to establish herself as a contender for a berth on the U.S. Olympic squad for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

“This is such a unique opportunity,” Yoslov said. “Track cycling is big in Europe, but it has such little visibility in the United States. To have the chance to share this on our home turf would be wonderful. It’s such an incredible spectator sport, and the Olympic Village would be at UCLA in the dorms, so I could be back at my freshman dorm five years later.”