Jeremy Powers struggled after a long run on the off-camber in the first lap, and stuck with Sven Nys for the first half of the race. © Bart Hazen
After the astonishing top ten finish in the Valkenburg World Cup this year, everyone had high expectations for Jeremy Powers at the first World Cup event outside Continental Europe. No one had higher expectations than Powers himself, however, and at the end of the day, you couldn’t help but feel that he didn’t want to walk away with a top-25. Still, the crowd was set fully behind him. Especially as he was one of the few riders able to take on the massive steps as captured by our UK contributor, Andy Ward (the volume on the video is slightly loud):
Philip Ingham, another UK-based Cyclocross Magazine contributor, was got a one-on-one interview with Powers after the event. The full video can be found below. Here’s what the American champ had to say:
On his performance at Milton Keynes:
“It hard for sure, there was a lot of off and on the bike. I was in a good spot, I think inside the top ten, had a great start off the front line. It was a big goal of mine to get on the front. I stayed out of trouble mostly except I hit this hole, somersaulted and got a couple of people running over me. It was my fault.”
“It was a really tough track – and speaking of track there was no traction. Overall it was super hard, you had to have a big engine today. I was losing some time I’m not exactly sure where, but I felt as though I was going as hard as I could. I wasn’t able to turn that into better then 25th so 25th was what I came away with and just about the best I could have done for today, at least.”
On riding in the first World Cup in front of English speaking fans for the first time:
“Yes, that was actually super-cool. I think that was the most fans I’ve ever had cheering for me at a race, period. There were so many people excited to say “go Jeremy Powers”, “go JPow.” For sure some Europeans now know my nickname!
“It was special to be part of that and a really cool experience and I think it’s a big boon for Cyclocross. As a world cup it was really cool and I was psyched to be a part of it!”
Stay tuned for more footage and bike profiles as the media keeps coming in from Milton Keynes!
