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Gould, Compton set to duel at Cincinatti ‘Cross Festival

by VeloNews.com

• October 01, 2008
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Organizers of the Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival have announced that Olympian and multi-time mountain bike and cyclocross champion Georgia Gould will be competing at all three races of the Festival from October 10 through 12.  She will join Katie Compton in a renewal of their years-long duel for supremacy of the Elite Women’s division.   

Also today, the Queen City Wheelmen have announced that, in accordance with the “Gould Formula,” they have increased  the purse for the top five UCI Women’s at the Festival’s second race, the Java Johnny’s / Lionhearts International on Saturday, October 11.   

Java Johnny’s / Lionhearts now joins the Cincinnati Festival’s Sunday race, the Bio Wheels / United Dairy Farmers Harbin Park International in paying the top-finishing women on an equal basis as the men.  Thanks to sponsors like Reece-Campbell Construction, the Harbin Park race had already become one of the first races, and one of the very few UCI C1 races, to institute the so-called “Gould-Formula” for increased women’s prize money that was first proposed by Georgia Gould in news-making petition to the UCI last year.  As such, it is one of the richest women’s cyclocross races in the world.  Under the Gould Formula, the top five women are paid exactly the same as the men, before reverting to the standard UCI payback for places 6 onwards – an increase of more than 100% in total prize money for the Women’s division.  The formula rewards top women with “equal pay for equal work”, while recognizing that the current women’s fields are often smaller than the men’s.     

The Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival is three days of UCI-sanctioned cyclocross racing, the only three-day festival in the world apart from Belgium’s “Christmas Week”.  Part of the Zipp OVCX Tour, the Festival consists of three separate races in the greater Cincinnati metropolitan area: The Darkhorse Cyclo Stampede UCI C2 in Burlington Kentucky on Friday, October 10; The Java Johnny’s – Lionhearts International UCI C2 in Middletown Ohio on Saturday October 11; and the newly upgraded, UCI C1 Bio Wheels – United Dairy Farmers Harbin Park International on Sunday October 12.   

Over 100 riders from Switzerland, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada and throughout the United States are already entered in the Festival with over two weeks to go.  For more information on the Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival, including direct links to registration on BikeReg.com, see http://cincinnatiuci3.blogspot.com/