2013 Women's Cyclocross Championships

I've decided to change gears for today, and write about Women's Cyclocross, like I did last year. I've still never watched cyclocross, but it looks really interesting to me. Maybe I should Youtube some videos and check it out.

However, what caught my attention this year, was Katie Compton's amazing comeback from a terrible start. She ended up with the silver for all her hard work. Marianne Vos, the Women's Road Race champion, received gold.

Vos storms to victory in Cyclo-cross World Championships

Powerful, graceful, flawless - Marianne Vos reigned supreme for the fifth straight year, placing her sixth career elite women’s cyclo-cross world alongside her two road race rainbow jerseys and a pair of Olympic gold medals in Louisville, Kentucky.

American Katie Compton had a poor start, but chased valiantly to win the silver medal.

The battle for bronze looked to go to the Czech Republic for the second race in a row, but Katerina Nash hearbreakingly suffered chain problems in the sprint and was overtaken by Lucie Chainel-Lefevere for the bronze.

“A world championship is always special,” Vos said. “For me, the pressure is going up every year because everyone expects you to win. Of course, if you already won it five times, they think you can win it for the sixth time. They think it will be easy, but I was kind of nervous. The difficult moments were in the past two weeks.”

Following the example of her compatriot Mathieu van der Poel who crushed the junior men’s field, Vos gave no mercy to her fellow elite women, although she waited until longer to make her move.

No other athlete in cycling history has dominated year round as Vos has, and it was no different in Louisville. Despite rapidly changing course conditions as the sun began to melt the morning’s snow, Vos was only in reach of the other racers on the first lap, but as soon as she had sized up her competition she shifted into another gear and motored away.

“Today during the race in the first lap, I felt a bit uncomfortable on the course because it had changed a bit due to the conditions,” Vos said. “From then on, I was in first place and held my own pace.”

A crash early in the last lap took down some of the back markers, including Americans Georgia Gould and Meredith Miller.

The first leading group emerged on the first half lap, with Vos hanging back with Chainel-Lefevere, with mountain bike specialist Eva Lechner (Italy), Christel Ferrier Bruneau (France) and Vos’s teammate Sanne van Paassen holding a gap over a large group with Compton, Nash, Cant and others.

Vos shredded the leading group with a blistering acceleration on the second lap as the sun came out and began to melt the top layer of the course. Quickly establishing her intentions, the Olympic road champion opened up an unbeatable gap.
By the end of the second lap Nash was surging forward to join Lechner and van Paasen, followed by Compton in fifth, while Chainel struggled on the runs and lost a few positions.

Compton recovered from her poor opening laps to chase her way up to the leading group, and by the midpoint had moved into a medal position. However, by the time she found van Paassen’s wheel and pushed past into second place, Vos already had more than a minute’s lead.

Compton quickly pulled away from the chase while van Paassen and Lechner’s earlier efforts took their toll. Although the American was superior from the other silver medal contenders, she continued to lose time on the Vos locomotive into the final lap.

Nash distanced the other chasers and looked set to secure the bronze, with Chainel leaving van Paasen behind for fourth, but a bobble by Nash on the last part of the course allowed Chainel to catch up.

Nash got back in front for the sprint, but had problems with her chain and had to dismount and run to the line, missing out on the medal to the Frenchwoman, but holding on for fourth just ahead of van Paassen and Lechner.

Full Results

Elite women

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Marianne Vos (Netherlands)	0:43:00
2	Katherine Compton (United States Of America)	0:01:34
3	Lucie Chainel-Lefevre (France)	0:02:10
4	Katerina Nash (Czech Republic)	0:02:12
5	Sanne Van Paassen (Netherlands)	0:02:15
6	Eva Lechner (Italy)	0:02:17
7	Jasmin Achermann (Switzerland)	0:02:36
8	Sabrina Stultiens (Netherlands)	0:03:06
9	Ellen Van Loy (Belgium)	0:03:18
10	Kaitlin Antonneau (United States Of America)	0:03:19

Cyclo-Cross World Championships, Elite Women

I am more of a road bike girl, but blogging for over 6 months has made me learn there is more to cycling. And as cyclist's names repeat, I learn more about them and want to feature them in my blog. So here are the results from the 2012 UCI Cyclo-Cross World Championships:

Cyclo-cross Worlds: Vos unstoppable in retaining rainbow jersey

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/championnats-du-monde-world-championships-2012/elite-women/results)

Marianne Vos out-powered the rest of the field during the cyclo-cross world championships in Koksijde, Belgium. Almost forty seconds later Daphny van den Brand (The Netherlands) won the sprint for second place ahead of local favorite Sanne Cant (Belgium). At 24, Vos overtakes Hanka Kupfernagel (Germany) as record holder with five ‘cross world titles.

“It was not my goal to overtake her but five titles is fantastic,” Vos said.

On the technical course Vos clearly struggled to get through the sand stretches but that didn’t keep her from quickly earning a comfortable lead. Vos built up a lead of a minute and plowed her way through the sand to a well-deserved win.

“Technically it wasn’t good today. I wouldn’t deserve getting a dune named after me like the Elite Men’s winner will enjoy. Getting a mud section or a stretch of pavement named after me would be more correct,” Vos said.

Two women missed their start at 11am and they were Vos and Katherine Compton (USA). While Vos quickly recovered Compton didn’t and a little later she was caught up in a crash.

“I missed my first pedal stroke at the start and that raised the adrenaline to the top. If I had the opportunity I would take the initiative and ride my own race. I quickly had a gap but I realized that it would be a long forty minutes,” Vos said.

Unlike Vos the US champion struggled to get in the rhythm on the Koksijde course. After the first lap she rode outside the top-15 at nearly a minute from Vos. “I missed my pedal and couldn’t find it. Then I crashed in the first right hand turn before the pit. From there I got stuck in traffic but I’ve never given up. It’s hard to get back. I kind of saw this coming,” Compton said.

While Vos comfortably led the race ahead of Van den Brand another Dutch rider, Sanne van Paassen, was under pressure from Cant who made progress and brought along Katerina Nash (Czech Republic) and Sophie de Boer (The Netherlands).

Early on in the third lap a group with Compton, Jasmin Achermann (Switzerland) and Nikki Harris (UK) bridged up with Cant, De Boer, Van Paassen and Nash. Right at the first sand stretches Cant blasted away and in no time Van den Brand was caught. Van Paassen and Compton then bridged up, creating a first chase group at 34 seconds from Vos with Cant, Compton, Van Paassen and Van den Brand. Further back a head-first dive from Helen Wyman (UK) in the sand caused a scare but the British champion continued her race.

During the penultimate lap Vos extended her lead to one minute while behind her Compton struggled to keep up with the three other chasers. Nevertheless none of them wanted to work on the long start-finishing straight and Compton quickly closed down the gap of 10 seconds.

In the final lap Vos made no mistakes and clearly was in delight, emotionally celebrating her fifth world title when she crossed the finish line. In the chase group a battle unfolded in which Cant, Van den Brand and Van Paassen exchanged attacks.

Compton followed at a short distance but never managed to overtake any of the three other women. In the final sections Van Paassen lost ground too but she was enormously happy with her fourth place. “I’ve been struggling with my health for two months and arrived here without competition. Despite that I simply manage to finish fourth and wonder why I was worrying that much. It makes me emotional,” she told Cyclingnews.

In front of her Cant sneaked ahead of Van den Brand and she turned into the finishing straight as leader. Cant didn’t have a sprint left in her legs though and Van den Brand easily captured second place in her last world championships race.

“That grass section ahead of the finish is quite tough so Cant probably had sore legs. I had enough power left and noticed that Sanne didn’t have her hands in the drops. It’s my first silver medal and with such a good Marianne I can’t be disappointed. I started real fast, maybe a little bit too fast because I never felt good,” Van den Brand said.

When crossing the finish line Cant threw her hands in the air, clearly not disappointed with her loss in the sprint. “I still have a hard time to believe this. I felt really well and apparently in the sand I was among the best. To me it didn’t matter what medal I would take. In every category the Belgians expected, except in the Women’s category and then I pull off this,” Cant said.

British rider Harris rode a great race and finished sixth at one minute from Vos. Wyman placed thirteenth.

Further back American riders Nicole Duke and Meredith Miller cracked the top-20, Amy Dombroski (USA) was 23rd while Kaitlin Antonneau (USA) disappointed with her 26th place. “It’s been a long season and it wasn’t good today. I improved my result from last year though so that’s positive,” Antonneau told Cyclingnews.

Results

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Marianne Vos (Netherlands)	0:41:04
2	Daphny Van Den Brand (Netherlands)	0:00:37
3	Sanne Cant (Belgium)	0:00:38
4	Sanne Van Paassen (Netherlands)	0:00:49
5	Katherine Compton (United States Of America)	0:00:53
6	Nikki Harris (Great Britain)	0:01:03
7	Sophie De Boer (Netherlands)	0:01:05
8	Katerina Nash (Czech Republic)	0:01:11
9	Jasmin Achermann (Switzerland)	0:01:12
10	Lucie Chainel-Lefevre (France)	0:01:54

What's better than the Tour de France?

...Tour of Poland? Um, ok?

Boom would rather ride Tour of Poland than Tour de France

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boom-would-rather-ride-tour-of-poland-than-tour-de-france)

Lars Boom will skip the Tour de France this year. The Rabobank rider sees the Tour of Poland as a better race for him to look for stage wins and to prepare for the London Olympics, where he hopes to ride both the time trial and the road race.

“I would really like to ride the Tour for myself, but I understand that our team is built around Robert Gesink and a few other GC riders,” he told the ANP news agency.

“Last year I rode for Robert Gesink. There's nothing wrong with that and it also went just fine. But a stage win is the biggest thing in the Tour for me.”

Boom will now look for those stage wins in Poland. "I think it's a better preparation for the Games. Then I do hope to ride the Tour of Spain, shortly before the world championships. "

This weekend he will look to take his sixth consecutive Dutch national cyclo-cross title, after which he will devote himself again to the road.

Vos: 2011 Readers' Poll Winner

2011 Reader Poll: Vos voted Female Road Rider of the Year

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/2011-reader-poll-vos-voted-female-road-rider-of-the-year)

Amassing 27 race wins in 2011, it was no surprise that Nederland Bloeit's Marianne Vos won the title of Female Road Rider of the Year in Cyclingnews' annual reader poll.

Vos, 24, has dominated women's racing this year. Her wins include the Ronde van Drenthe, La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, GP Elsy Jacobs and the Giro d'Italia Femminale, a well as the Dutch and World cyclo-cross titles. On the track, she also holds the Worlds scratch race title.

If there was a stumbling block, it was the UCI Road World Championships, where Vos was again left feeling disappointed, standing second on the podium for the fifth consecutive year after being pipped in the sprint in the elite women's road race by Italy's defending champion, Giorgia Bronzini. Given her dominance of the 2011, Vos was overwhelming favourite when it came to the race for the rainbow jersey in Copenhagen. Vos however, backed away from any talk that the pressure proved too much.

"It's the world championships. There's always a lot of pressure in that race. That's what you do it for, you race for the big races and it's great to do the world championships for your country," Vos said. "Of course when everybody in the team does the work for you, you want to end it perfectly. That's a bit of pressure. But it's also great to have and after this season, I was sort of used to it."

Showing her class, Vos praised the efforts of Bronzini - "Giorgia is a fantastic sprinter, she won in a great way. Of course you think back about whether you made a mistake in the sprint, but I didn't. She was the best."

One of 15 riders on the UCI's new athlete's commission, Vos' voice is key as the push for improvements to be made in women's cycling continues.

In 2012, Vos will lead the new Rabobank women's team which has taken over Nederland Bloeit.

Second place in the reader poll went to last year's winner Emma Pooley, who was runner-up to Vos in the Giro Donne. Pooley broke her collarbone early in the season but fought back for wins at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt der Frauen, GP Oberbaselbiet, Chur – Arosa as well as overall victory at the Tour de l'Ardèche

Next best in the poll, was Judith Arndt. The German veteran who capped a strong back end of the season with a gold-medal-performance in the time trial at the UCI Road World Championships.

2011 best female road rider results

1 Marianne Vos 6161 (28.5%)
2 Emma Pooley 3782 (17.5%)
3 Judith Arndt 2467 (11.4%)
4 Giorgia Bronzini 2105 (9.7%)
5 Clara Hughes 1768 (8.2%)
6 Emma Johansson 1667 (7.7%)
7 Elizabeth Armitstead 1462 (6.8%)
8 Amber Neben 1154 (5.3%)
9 Ina Teutenberg 835 (3.9%)
10 Annemiek van Vleuten 233 (1.1%)
Total: 21,634

Boonen's Charity Event

Boonen returns for charity cyclo-cross race

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boonen-returns-for-charity-cyclo-cross-race)

Tom Boonen will once again host the charity cyclo-cross race "Boonen & Friends" at the Zilvermeer in Mol, Belgium this Saturday. The event benefits "Move to Improve", a charity for children with movement disorders. Joining the Quick Step sprinter will be former cyclo-cross world champion Lars Boom who will be given a one-minute handicap to the star-studded field of road professionals.

Boom will be up against a field of 48 riders which includes, among others, former winners Maarten Wynants and Pieter Vanspeybrouck as well as current professionals André Greipel, Jelle Vanendert, Giovanni Visconti, Carlos Barredo, Björn Leukemans, Marco Bandiera and Christian Knees.

In the race for retired pros, another former world champion, Erwin Vervecken, will try to defend his title of last year against the likes of Johan Museeuw, Davide Bramati, Eric Vanderaerden, Jo Planckaert and Marc Wauters.

The race is sure to provide even Boom and Vervecken with challenges on a course which Boonen called one of the hardest yet. "Even for a cyclo-crosser the circuit is technically challenging."

Boonen is looking forward to racing for the first time since he crashed out of the Vuelta a España with a broken wrist.
""My wrist is almost healed. I only suffer when I have to ride a long descent."

After a series of community races, the ex-professionals will take to the start at 2pm, with Boonen and friends going off at 3:15.

Ullrich's New Hobby??

I don't know enough about cyclosportive racing to comment, but I found this very interesting:

Ullrich turns to cyclosportive racing

(http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ullrich-turns-to-cyclosportive-racing)

After suffering from burnout syndrome last year, Jan Ullrich is back to good health as he participated in a cyclosportive event in Italy last week. The experience turned out positive for the German, and he is now planning to attend further events in the future.

On July 31, Ullrich lined up at the Giro delle Dolomiti in Bolzano under a pseudonym, "Max Kraft" (literally "Max Power"). But his anonymity didn't last long, as fellow participants amongst the approximate 700 cyclists in the field soon recognised the only German Tour de France winner, who has only been back in training for four months.

Ullrich was pleasantly surprised with how the field reacted to his presence, according to Radsportnews. "At one point, my shoulder almost started to hurt from all the tapping! But it felt good. It showed me that people still like me - at least those, who also like cycling," he said.

The 37-year-old started the cyclosportive event without a transponder at first, but then took one one on stage three. He clocked 96th on the Passo Nigra and was respectful of the amateurs' level of competition. "It was surprisingly fast," said Ullrich, who nevertheless takes part without any sporting ambitions - a new experience to him.

"I just want to find the pleasure of cycling again," he continued. "Hobby races are a lot of fun. You ride along with like-minded people, talk about the course and bikes, give some advice... it's just cycling. Without having to talk about doping all the time!"

Together with his manager, Ullrich has decided to line up at more cylocportives in the future and to raise funds for charity in this way. His next ride will be the Ötztaler Radmarathon in Austria on August 28.

"There will be packages on offer to ride and spend time with Jan," Ullrich's media manager Falk Nier explained. The revenue would be donated charities.