Two titans: Nys and Stybar at UCI World Championships of Cyclocross. © Thomas Van Bracht
While we don’t follow road and mountain biking excessively in the off-season, since we’re usually busy checking out the new ’cross goodies for the upcoming season (like the new SRAM CX1) or playing on our ’cross bikes in gravel grinders, we couldn’t help but notice that this was a winning weekend for cyclocrossers.
In Stage 6 of the Paris-Nice road race, Stybar scored the third step of the podium—not bad for someone who just took the cyclocross World Champion title away from Sven Nys!
Then, back in the US, Canadian National Cyclocross Champion Geoff Kabush stormed to the win in the cross country race at Bonelli in San Dimas, California. In the women’s race, Katerina Nash took her second win of the season, the first being her cross country win at Mellow Johnny’s in Texas two weeks ago. There’s still short track today, and with a similar format to ’cross, we won’t be surprised if she (or teammate and fellow ’crosser Georgia Gould) takes the win there as well. In the Super D, ’crosser Raphael Gagne, who won the UCI ’cross race in Rochester on Day 2 last season, took the win.
Lastly, even in the off-season, Sven Nys is talking ’cross. During his commentary at the Tirreno-Adriatico, Nys used the chance to comment on his discussions with Brian Cookson, the UCI president, about the future of ’cross. Not only is he still hoping that cyclocross may become an Olympic sport, he also discussed women’s racing, saying that equality amongst the genders is one of the more important criteria if we’re ever to see ’cross in the Olympics. He also, again, spoke highly of Stybar.
