Ciclista Bonita Cyclocross Team director sportif Miss Mary Perez put together an amazing schedule of all the NCNCA racers who will be taking part in next weeks USA National Championships in Bend, Oregon. Plus their start times, and their divisions/age groups entered.
My first selected video is from Koksijde, Begium. This race course is one of my favorite and next year will host the UCi World Championships for Cyclocross. This video is very good as it shows my boy Bart Wellens show some solid form and hit off the front of a chase group who was fighting it our for 2nd place. Eventual winner Niels Albert was alone and solo for the win, but the race for second place was very exciting. Wellens ended up bitter as Stybar, his team mate, did work with Nys to chase down his surge on the final lap. Wellens had a good gap but it looked as if Nys was just letting him dangle out there and was never too far behind to close that gap. Wellens was clearly at his limit, and his last moment knee drop in the sand blocked Nys and showed he was basically done in the final push for the line. They really changed up the Koksijde course, but I very much liked the sand running sections they added. The sand portions of this course produce spectacular action from the racers, and make for a one of a kind circuit. This video shows some tremendous sand sections & running sections that really tested the world's best riders, and the final moments of the last lap are very thrilling. Plus check out the crowds- off the charts huge! Nice to see Niels Albert rise to the top step of the podium.
The second video is from the 34e Internationale Nissan Super Prestige Cyclo-cross Gieten. This video is one of my favorite this season, as any time you have a 4 man group in a shoot out for the overall win, the race action is going to be world class and exciting. The course was tremendously fast, and yet the turns were extra tricky as conditions were icy and muddy in the corners. You can see from the riders motions that many of the corners were extra slick and hard to navigate, however the straight away sections were very, very fast. The four rider shoot out was between Sven Nys, BKCP-Powerplus team mates Dieter Vanthourenhout & Radomir Simunek Jr., and eventual winner Tom Meeusen. Young Tom Meeusen is the future star of Cyclocross and he showed his talent and skill in this race. The riders really battled for position in the final lap. They came together and had elbow contact time and time again, but kept most of the racing very clean, and no hard blows were traded. Meeusen and Simunek Jr. did most of the cat fighting, while Nys lurked behind waiting to pounce for the win. Meeusen really was on fire and did everything right to finally break down Simunek Jr. after they traded the lead 5 or 6 times in the final lap. The racing was fantastic to watch in the final portions of the last lap. The big money had to be placed on Nys for the win, and sure enough he set himself in the perfect place to out sprint Meeusen as they came around the final corner and on to the finishing straight. Simunek had been distanced and Nys was in the right place to go for victory. Things do not always go to plan, and when Nys super surged on the pedals extra hard to start the final kick for the line his pedal completely shattered off the cranks and Nys nearly was ejected off his bike from this explosion of his equipment. It was amazing that he did not flip over the bars from ripping his pedals off his cranks in full sprint. But he is Sven Nys, a Olympic gymnast on Cyclocross bike. Meeusen proceeds to sprint on for the win. This video has some of the best final lap action of the Euro Cross season 2010.
