Former American cyclist medals for France

 STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) -- French cyclist Marion Clignet, who used to race for the United States until a bitter breakup six years ago, had something to prove on Sunday.
 But she said her silver medal in the women's individual pursuit -- one of France's seven medals in cycling so far -- was about something more meaningful than vindication or vindictiveness.
 "Part of my victory, my second place today, is over epilepsy," said Clignet, who began cycling after her first epileptic seizure 12 years ago. "It should be used by all the kids who have epilepsy and think it may be a handicap, because it's not."
 Clignet, 32, uses her status as one of the best female cyclists in the world to refute the many misconceptions about her disorder.
 "Epilepsy or not, I made it here," she said. "It didn't keep me from winning a medal."
 Clignet, who was born in Hyde Park, Ill., to French parents, had an epileptic seizure in 1984 when she was 21, and her driver's license was revoked for a year.
 She was living in Bethesda, Md., at the time and had to find a way to get to and from her job, so she took up cycling.
 Five years later, Clignet won the women's team 50-kilometer time trial at the U.S. National Cycling Championships.
 But after being left off the U.S. world championship team in 1990, she moved to France with her parents, determined to improve her cycling as well as to show the U.S. Cycling Federation what she could do.
 Clignet, who has dual citizenship, said at the time that she felt the U.S. Cycling Federation "was discriminating against my epilepsy or because I was heavier."
 Clignet was immediately accepted by the French team, and she led the French quartet to a victory in the team time trial at the 1991 world championships. She also won the 1994 women's individual pursuit world title.
 She controls her epilepsy by taking six daily tablets of a drug that regulates brain waves.
 "So many told me at the beginning that 'Oh, you can't ride because you are an epileptic,' and I say, 'Oh, yeah? Watch me," Clignet said.
 Clignet's silver is one of seven French medals, five of them gold. The Americans have won only two medals, both of them silver.
 nother former U.S. rider, Lucy Tyler Sharman, won the bronze for Australia on Sunday in the women's points race. Sharman was born in Louisville, Ky.