The votes are in and Cyclocross Magazine readers have spoken. After a wild first-round, the second round voting narrowed our field down to the final eight. As we decided when we originally launched the contest, we will now be re-seeding the remaining eight athletes based on their votes in the first two rounds.
Voting for the round of eight is open through 11:59 p.m. PDT on Sunday, March 25.
Make sure to vote for your favorites and encourage your cyclocross friends to vote as well. Although many of us grow weary of all the campaigning here in the U.S., we are okay with an exception for an effective social media CX Madness campaign this weekend.
Before we get to the final bracket, we are going to take a look at the second-round results.
Second Round Results
The story of the first round of voting was the razor-thin upsets pulled off by 12 seeds Ellen Noble and Jeremy Powers. In the second round, both former teammates again shocked the world and pulled off upsets over their high-seeded opponents, this time by more comfortable margins. Noble upset 4 seed Eva Lechner and Powers powered to a win over 4 seed Laurens Sweeck. As we will see, their reward is two tough round of eight matchups.
One of the athletes who faced a very tough draw was 7 seed Stephen Hyde, who won easily in the first round, but then faced off against his pal and juggernaut Wout van Aert. If there is a U.S. bias in the voting it did not show, as Van Aert won by over 100 votes.
The closest matchup in the second round was the race between the two Telenet Fidea Lions, Toon Aerts and Lars van der Haar. Van der Haar roared the loudest, and the 6 seed upset his teammate by a mere 19 votes.
There were few surprises in the other matchups, with Katie Compton, Sanne Cant, Kaitie Keough and Mathieu van der Poel all advancing with lofty vote totals.
(1) Sanne Cant d. (9) Katerina Nash
(12) Ellen Noble d. (4) Eva Lechner
(3) Kaitie Keough d. (11) Emma White
(2) Katie Compton d. (7) Nikki Brammeier
(1) Mathieu van der Poel d. (8) Tobin Ortenblad
(12) Jeremy Powers d. (4) Laurens Sweeck
(6) Lars van der Haar d. (3) Toon Aerts
(2) Wout van Aert d. (7) Stephen Hyde
The Final Bracket
The bracket for the final march to the QOM or KOM is now set based on total votes in the first two rounds. Katie Compton earned the top seed with almost 80 more votes than the second top vote-getter Kaitie Keough. The re-seeding created some very interesting matchups, but at this point, there are no easy wins to be had.
Vote for your favorites below. Voting is open through the end of the day Sunday in the U.S.
Round of 8 Voting
1 Katie Compton vs. 8 Jeremy Powers
Loading ...2 Kaitie Keough vs. 7 Ellen Noble
Loading ...3 Wout van Aert vs. 6 Lars van der Haar
Loading ...4 Mathieu van der Poel vs. 5 Sanne Cant
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