Wow! Louisville Delivers Big

The preliminaries are over, the racing is full on. And the weather is still playing its part. The temperature dropped overnight and the morning had snow for some of the races. Perfect CX madness.

One note of disappointment: the USACycling.org site really isn't helping media figure out what's going on. No useful start lists, no easy to access results. I've found the best info coming from folks on Facebook, Twitter and cycling-specific websites. I missed a race that mattered, the first race had a Canadian 60-64 Master taking the first rainbow jersey of these events and I wasn't there because I didn't know we had anyone racing. Sigh.

Still... I did get some good coverage of the races I knew about. Here's a small gallery of what I saw. The muck was bike-breaking and will-sapping. Check out PedalMag.com for a gallery, should be online soon.

Peter Lawrence finished a strong 2nd

Natural art?

Steve Tilford raced to victory with an injured shoulder

More natural art

Sandra Deegan finished with determination

Brutal on man and machine

And for the remainder of these races, these photo galleries will be brought to you by the number 19 and the colour green. There are only 25 green photographer bibs for this event (the only ones allowed full access including the finish). I'll do my best to use it to full advantage and try to get some good, unique shots.

Down to nothing but finals @ Louisville

All the prep is over, now it's finals (and a few consolation races).

The weather came in as predicted, sirens and PA systems warning everyone that there were tornadoes. And lots of rain and wind. For the CX Master Worlds it meant a beat up course (waterlogged and wind ravaged) that needed a 2 hour delay to the start. Then it was a mudfest like I haven't seen in years. So, I'll let a few pictures tell the story. And I'm happy to report that all the Canadians I know made it to the finals.

Paul

About to splash down

The second run-up

Weather Watch in Louisville

I've heard comments about how the Worlds CX course isn't as challenging as it could be... I suspect the weather over the next couple of days could affect that. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a Belgian or European CX Worlds being put under a Tornado watch/warning. The next few hours could dictate how the weekend plays out. Flooding is possible, wind damage, followed by a significant drop in temperature that might result in a quick freeze.

Stay tuned for a Wednesday morning update!

Heading to Louisville...

I had originally planned to head to Louisville for this coming Friday, to cover the Elite CX races on the weekend. Instead I'm heading down on Tuesday and will be covering the Masters races as well as the Elite. It will be my first time visiting Kentucky too so I'm glad to have almost a full week to explore. I won't be taking the camper though; this trip will be one of the few I will be staying in a hotel.

This is the first time the Cyclocross World  Championships are being held outside of Europe...  definitely a big deal and I"m glad to have the opportunity to cover it. I'll be doing some video interviews, pre-race photos and then the usual race coverage. All with a focus on the Canadian who are competing. In total there are 18 elite racers and about a dozen masters.

It will be interesting to see how the North Americans do against the squads coming over from Europe. Last year the Belgians took the top 7 places in the elite men's race! Having said that, it's disappointing that the field will be so small... a lot of countries didn't send over full contingents and I hear there will only be 45 racers in the elite men's category. I hope that's not true but we'll see soon enough.

Emily Batty will head up the Canadian Women's team

Mike Garrigan (red helmet) will be in Louisville too