After two weeks of voting, our 2018 CX Madness contest that started with 32 cyclocrossers is down to four. Fun fact: the NCAA has trademarked the term “Final Four,” so we will call it the … “Fiets Vier.” Yeah, let’s do that.
Voting for the Round of 4 is open through 11:59 p.m. PDT on Thursday, March 29. Cast your votes below.
But first, as always, a look at how the Round of 8 played out. (Elite 8 is trademarked as well)
Round of 8 Results
As with any tournament, winning and moving on only gets harder as the bracket gets smaller. We re-seeded the final eight riders based on votes and the result was a bracket with some tough match-ups.
How am I supposed to decide between @Sannecant and @mathieuvdpoel??!
— Amanda Schaap (@amandaschaap) March 22, 2018
Perhaps not surprisingly, the 4-5 match-up between Mathieu van der Poel and Sanne Cant was the closest of the weekend. Voting was neck-in-neck the entire time it was open, and in the end, Van der Poel eked out a 19-vote win to advance. Given the tight race, he probably held off on the Sunday afternoon tail whip the last time over the flyover.
If there is one rider who has a strong beef with the CXlection Committee, it is definitely Ellen Noble. Noble pulled off an upset over Helen Wyman in the first round in the face of Wyman’s impressive lobbying campaign and then knocked off Eva Lechner in the second round to move onto the Round of 8.
This time, Noble used some lobbying techniques of her own.
Guys, my grandmother REALLY wanted me to share this and ask you all to vote. So, please vote. For Grandma. And me, I guess, too. https://t.co/Vuq4L2ZB4L
— Ellen Noble (@ellenlikesbikes) March 23, 2018
Noble’s “Rollen with Ellen” (I would hope she came up with a better slogan if she ran for high school student council!) campaign paid off, and she pulled off the 7 over 2 upset over Kaitie Keough by her most comfortable margin yet. And after some tight ones, Noble took home the most votes of the Round of 8.
Wout van Aert and Katie Compton also both had nice vote hauls to move on to the penultimate round of voting.
(1) Katie Compton d. (8) Jeremy Powers
(4) Mathieu van der Poel d. (5) Sanne Cant
(3) Wout van Aert d. (6) Lars van der Haar
(7) Ellen Noble d. (2) Kaitie Keough
Fiets Vier Bracket
Voting for the Fiets Vier is open through Thursday night in the U.S. You can cast your votes below the bracket.
Fiets Vier Voting
1 Katie Compton vs. 4 Mathieu van der Poel - 2018 CX Madness
Loading ...3 Wout van Aert vs. 7 Ellen Noble - 2018 CX Madness
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