'I could feel the bones crushing': Cyclists valiantly fight off cougar that had their friend down for the count



A group of seasoned female cyclists were ripping through the forested Tokul Creek trail northeast of Fall City, Washington, when they came across a pair of cougars. The female cat took off running. The young male cougar, however, stuck around for a fight and a feast.

Owing to the perseverance and grit of the five cyclists — all in their 50s and 60s — the cougar ultimately lost the fight and became a feast for worms.

KUOW-FM reported that the cyclists met at the Tokul Creek trail on Feb. 17, then ventured some 19 miles in before encountering the cats. The group comprised Keri Bergere, 60; Annie Bilotta, 64; Auna Tietz, 59; Tisch Williams, 59; and Erica Wolf, 51.

The cats burst from the brush, dividing the riding team.

Tietz shouted, "Cougar! Cougar!"

The yelling was apparently enough to prompt the first cat to flee the scene, but not the other. The male lion, evidently unfazed, lunged at Bergere.

"Looking to my right, I saw the cougar's face," Bergere told KUOW. "It was just a split second, and he tackled me off my bike."

The cougar pulled the rider into the ditch that runs alongside the trail and clamped down on her jaw.

"I thought my teeth were coming loose, and I was gonna swallow my teeth," Bergere recalled. "I could feel the bones crushing, and I could feel it tearing back."

The beast, which the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife indicated was roughly a 1-year-old 75-pound cougar, had Bergere pinned and down for the count.

"I felt like it was suffocating me," said Bergere. "I could taste the blood in my mouth."

As the cyclist breathed what could have been her last, she reportedly heard the roar of her fellow riders and some choice language.

"These ladies are not big, and they were killing this cougar," said Bergere. "They were not going to let it get me."

"I immediately tried to choke the cougar, which was like trying to choke a rock," Bilotta told KING-TV. "Then, Erica and Tisch come over with sticks and a rock and we're hand-to-hand combat battling this thing."

While the riders thwacked at the beast with rocks, sticks, and an almost useless 2-inch knife, Bergere desperately attempted to unhinge its jaw, stabbing her fingers into its eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

Bilotta reportedly joined Bergere in digging into the cougar's mouth while Tietz yanked on the beast's leg.

"The cougar had his claws pretty much around her, in attack mode," Tietz told KUOW. "Like, 'I will have my prey now, and within a couple minutes I will eat her.'"

Looking to adopt the "most drastic measure," Tietz found a 25-pound melon-sized rock. She hoisted it between her legs about a foot off the ground, got the thumbs-up from Bergere, whose head was just next to the cougar's, then dropped the rock. Once was not enough, so Tietz dropped it on the cougar another four or five times.

This drastic measure was not, however, enough.

"I was sitting down, and I actually said, 'I can't do this any more,'" said Tietz. "But then I saw all the other girls doing their thing and helping, and I of course regained strength, and I saw, 'Okay, I can do this.'"

The riders refused to relent, and their fighting paid off: After fifteen minutes in the grips of the cougar, Bergere finally was able to break free of its jaws.

Bergere, bloodied but still alive, crawled over to the trail while her fellow riders struggled to keep the cougar down.

The riders reportedly grabbed Wolf's $6,000 bicycle and used it to pin down the cat until help arrived.

"I know for a fact I would be dead if they didn't come back in, I would just be gone," Bergere told KING. "That cougar had me."

WDFW Officer Chris Moszeter arrived on the scene and put a bullet between the cougar's shoulders while the women held it down, bringing the battle to a close.

"The people on the scene took immediate action to render aid, and one of our officers was able to arrive within minutes to continue medical aid and coordinate transport," said WDFW Lt. Erik Olson. "We may have had a very different outcome without their heroic efforts."

According to a GoFundMe campaign set up to help Bergere with her recovery, she suffered severe trauma to the face and permanent nerve damage.

Bergere was released from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Feb. 22 and reunited with an earring the beast had torn out and consumed.

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Jury convicts yoga teacher who murdered pro cyclist in jealous rage, fled country, then got nose job to evade justice



Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, tried desperately to avoid accountability for gunning down pro cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson in May 2022. The Austin woman fled to Costa Rica, got a new nose, and changed her hair. All of her efforts were in vain.

American officials caught the fugitive with help from Costa Rican authorities, then dragged her back to face justice, which was meted out this week despite a last-ditch escape effort.

A Texas jury convicted Armstrong Thursday of murder.

What's the background?

Blaze News previously reported that Wilson, a Vermont native and world-class cyclist, was in Austin on May 11, 2022, to compete in a cycling race. Hours before her slaying, she went out for a bike ride and a meal with Colin Strickland, a fellow cyclist and former boyfriend. Strickland also happened to be an on-again, off-again boyfriend of Armstrong's.

Strickland told the Austin-American Statesman that he and the victim "had a brief romantic relationship from late October-early November 2021 that spanned a week or so while Wilson was visiting Austin. At the time, she and I had both recently ended relationships. She returned to her home in California and about a month later, Kaitlin Armstrong and I reconciled and resumed our relationship."

Strickland stressed that his subsequent encounters with Wilson were "platonic and professional."

Surveillance video captured Armstrong's black Jeep Grand Cherokee pull up to the residence where Wilson was staying just moments after Strickland had dropped her off following their purportedly platonic get-together.

CNN indicated that prosecutors detailed during Armstrong's trial how she had access to Strickland's texts and also had used a geolocation app to track Wilson.

In addition to poring over the victim's social media profile in the days leading up to her trigger pull, she also made note of Wilson's address.Authorities later learned that not long before the slaying, Armstrong had acquired a firearm and expressed fury upon learning Strickland had been romantically involved with Wilson.

Police later found the cyclist bleeding out from gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene, three days before she was scheduled to compete in the 157-mile Gravel Locos bike race.

Prosecutor Rickey Jones told the jury, "The last thing Mo did on this Earth was scream in terror."

Surveillance footage caught the sound of the victim's screams, "followed by pow! Pow! Two gunshots – one to the front of the head, one to the side of the head that hits the index finger as it passes. You won't hear any more screams after that," said Jones.

Armstrong sold her vehicle two days after Wilson's death for $12,200, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. It appears her sale of the SUV was not just a matter of ditching evidence but getting enough cash to flee the country.

The fugitive

Days after her initial questioning by police, Armstrong flew from Austin to Houston, then took another flight to New York's LaGuardia Airport. Armstrong then flew to San José, Costa Rica, via Newark Liberty International Airport using her sister's name and passport.

According to investigators, Armstrong blew $6,000 on a nose job in Costa Rica, changed her hairstyle and hair color, and altogether attempted to lay low, passing time as a yoga instructor, reported the Associated Press. The killer also used various aliases while moving around the region.

After 43 days on the run, the U.S. Marshals Office of International Operations, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service, working with Costa Rican authorities, tracked down the killer to a hostel on Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas.

Armstrong was arrested on June 29, 2022, then deported on July 2 to the United States, where she pleaded not guilty to the charge of first-degree murder.

Despite her arrest, Armstrong's days of running were evidently not over.

On Oct. 11, corrections officers were escorting Armstrong to a doctor appointment when she decided to run once more, reported the Associated Press. Travis County Sheriff spokesman Kristen Dark said the killer made it over a block away before deputies caught up with her.

Armstrong faces a separate felony escape charge for this attempt.

Guilty

After two hours of deliberation Thursday, a Texas jury determined that Armstrong was guilty of first-degree murder. The yoga teacher, who will be sentenced Friday, faces a maximum sentence of 99 years in prison.

Wilson's family and friends cried and embraced upon learning the verdict.

Wilson's mother, Karen Wilson, told the court her daughter had been destined to "live and move and shine and listen and laugh and be such a unique person," reported ABC News.

The victim's father, Eric Wilson, likened her death to a living nightmare, noting, "I think about it every night. If I do sleep, when I wake up, it's the first thought on my mind. I live with it every day."

Matthew Wilson, the victim's brother, told the court, "My sister had her life taken from her for no reason at all."

"She'll never ride a bike again; she'll never take a 20-minute break from work to bake banana bread in her kitchen; she'll never get married; she'll never buy a home; she'll never have kids; she'll never meet someone that she loves, and ... my parents will never be able to see that happen, to see her enjoy her life," said Matthew Wilson.

Reaction after Kaitlin Armstrong found guilty of murdering Moriah Wilsonyoutu.be

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'A drag race from the start': Transvestite wins women's race by nearly 5 minutes; attributes his cycling win to 'a grueling effort'



A transvestite whose continued participation in women's cycling has prompted both outrage and the early retirement of at least one top female athlete won a North Carolina race over the weekend, clearing the finish line nearly five minutes ahead of his top female rival.

Adam Roberge and Austin Killips won elite titles Saturday upon their completion of the 131-mile Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina, which involves 14,000 feet of climbing in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Roberge claimed first place in the men's race in a time of 7 hours, 23 minutes, and 23 seconds, reported Cyclingnews.

Killips, a 27-year-old male cyclist who reportedly only began the "physical process of gender transition" in 2019, claimed first place in the women's race and the corresponding $5,000 prize with a time of 8 hours, 28 minutes, and 7 seconds. Although Killips would not have been able to claim the purse if competing with other men, he managed to beat the top woman, Paige Onweller, by nearly five minutes.

The Daily Mail reported that by the 13-mile mark, Killips was far out in front of the pack and maintained the lead. His female opponents caught up to him around the 55-mile mark, with Onweller passing him for a brief period, but by the 108-mile, Killips had left his competition in the dust.

Killips attributed his win not to his scientifically established physiological advantages, but to work.

"It was just a grueling effort. I am just really proud to lay it out there and get the result. I asserted myself and was able to get a gap early," said Killips. "We were kind of all riding together for quite while, and, you know, I have a cross background and I am going to attack these single track sections as hard as I can and did that. I hammered [it] and was able to stay clear."

Onweller, the top female in the women's category, said, "It was a drag race from the start since the first selection at Reeb Ranch single track came early at only seven miles into the race with a mostly downhill start. ... The top three women split up around mile 80 through a dirt sector that included numerous rocky sections and what seemed like never-ending switchbacks."

Onweller indicated in a post-race statement, "For those following women’s road cycling, you are aware of the [Union Cycliste Internationale] rule that this is currently allowed. Rather than sharing my personal opinions about the UCI rule, I think it’s most important to recognize that all athletes, no matter how they identify, should have a space to compete and race. Additionally, underneath all helmets is a face and a person who deserves respect, dignity and a safe space to ride bikes."

While Onweller elected not to criticize Killip, she suggested that "in the future ... a separate category is appropriate."

This is not the first time Killips has taken prize money intended for female athletes.

TheBlaze previously reported that Killips won the Tour of the Gila on April 30. He also placed first in the Northampton Cycling Club Hydra Cross Women Category 1/2/3 when competing in Holyoke, Massachusetts, on Sept. 3, and first again in the UCI elite women's category of the Northampton International Cyclocross on Nov. 12.

According to Crossresults.com, Killips has placed in the top three for numerous other races since he began competing against women.

The Telegraph reported that Hannah Arensman, a professional female cyclist from North Carolina, retired from the sport last year at the age of 24 after losing to Killips.

"This has gone on long enough, it has gone far enough. It should never have reached this point, it should never have been allowed. Someone has to take responsibility. This is not fair sport, and the governing bodies, who should have made the rules at the beginning, need to realize it," said Arensman, who indicated Killips had also pushed her during a competition.

The UCI is set to reopen talks in August about whether to allow transvestic men to compete in the women's category.

In a May 4 statement, the UCI indicated at its Glasgow meeting that management committee members will "take into consideration, in the context of the evolution of our society, the desire of transgender athletes to practise cycling. The UCI also hears the voices of female athletes and their concerns about an equal playing field for competitors, and will take into account all elements, including the evolution of scientific knowledge."

Arensman, a 35-time winner in cyclocross racing, said of Killips' participation in particular, "Here was somebody who wouldn’t keep up very well with the elite guys, but who was doing fine keeping up with the elite women. It was dispiriting, knowing that Killips was taking hormones to suppress testosterone. Every woman in these races has trained so hard to be there. There aren’t very many of us. Yes, it’s exciting to receive payouts equal to the men’s, to see the women’s numbers grow. But then to have a biological male jump in and start taking our records? There’s no fairness to it."

A 2021 study published in the journal Sports Medicine revealed that the "performance gap between males and female becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10-50% depending on sport. The performance gap is more pronounced in sporting activities relying on muscle mass and explosive strength."

The study, by Tommy Lundberg and Emma Hilton, also highlighted that "the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed."

\u201c\ud83d\udcfd\ufe0f Male pro women\u2019s cyclist Austin Killips talking about his win at the Belgian Waffle Ride gravel race in North Carolina yesterday. He credits his strategy and cx background. \n\n\ud83d\udeb4\ud83c\udffb\u200d\u2640\ufe0fLadies: You need to \u201clay it out there and get the result\u201d like Killips! \n\n#SaveWomensSports\u201d
— \ud83d\udeb2 (@\ud83d\udeb2) 1686514667

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