BRUSSELS (VN) — It’s only when I step out onto the concrete track that I realize what a different world I’ve stumbled into.

Four months ago, I stood in almost in this very spot, watching Kevin Pauwels lead Sven Nys, Niels Albert, and Julien Taramarcaz into the final lap of the fourth round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup. What at the time registered as one of the bigger thrills of my reporting career, planting my feet on one of the most storied pieces of cycling geography, is suddenly little more than a blip. Instead, it’s this day, perhaps the first day of classics season that could rightly be called spring, awaiting Fabian Cancellara’s and Sep Vanmarcke’s arrival in the legendary Roubaix velodrome, that feels like the landmark moment.

This is saying something. In a half-decade chasing European cyclocross, I’ve seen my share of big moments. I’ve seen a world championship race, in Koksijde, Belgium, in 2012, attended by so many people that the host city’s population temporarily quadrupled. I’ve stood on the finish line to watch Marianne Vos — perhaps the best all-around cyclist in history — win five separate cyclocross world championships. In Louisville, Kentucky, this winter, I witnessed the single biggest outpouring of love for the sport of cycling that I have ever seen. But this year, VeloNews decided to send me to the spring classics, and there is no denying that being on the infield for the finish of Paris-Roubaix is a moment as big as any of those.

I stand, packed into a throng of journalists and photographers and soigneurs, surrounded, outside the track, by a crowd that must number in the tens of thousands and whose cheers with every attack are deafening. And these represent just a handful of those who lined the 250-kilometer course to watch the race earlier in the day. The cyclocross races I usually cover can unfold in a single farm field; road racing, it is clear, is sport on an enormously larger scale.

Living in Belgium, of course, it is impossible not to know this, but knowing it and experiencing it firsthand are not the same. Covering cyclocross races, with their attendant beer tents and VIP events, feels a little like watching a huge and very muddy party that is occasionally interrupted by people on bikes. Watching a WorldTour race roll off the line with its caravan of police vehicles, press cars, TV motos, and team buses is like watching an army deploying. A big Belgian cyclocross race might feature 40 riders who remain largely in the same location; the classics feature hundreds, and sufficient mobile infrastructure to move the massive race support system from start to finish.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the emotion of the race’s final moments seem to be played through an amplifier with volume set to 11. I’m so tense as Cancellara and Vanmarcke crawl around the track, contesting a 750-meter match sprint that will determine the outcome of this 250km race, that my heart seems to rise out of my chest and into the back of my throat, tying itself into a tight little knot around my trachea. I realize, as I watch them roll into the final turn, I am holding my breath.

Truth be told, I rarely get all that excited about bike races anymore. Not like this, anyway. Normally, working alone at a cyclocross race, I’m simply too busy: setting up photos and testing the light, making notes about the unfolding race, trying to move through the crowds that line the courses, trying not to fall on the steep, slippery hillsides. There’s little time to think very hard about winners and losers and tactical battles, and so I rarely get caught up in the race itself. I am a dispassionate observer, watching each race unfold from the outside, documenting it, but apart from it.

Today I am deep inside the race. Literally so — I am standing inside of the track where Cancellara and Vanmarcke are now making the rounds — but, more fundamentally, I have allowed myself to get caught up in the drama of the day.

This, I now realize, is the real reason I wanted to go to the classics in the first place. I wanted to see how this massive logistical problem called a bike race gets worked out, and I wanted to see what the job is like for my colleagues who do the bulk of their work during the spring and summer months. But mostly I wanted to get close enough to a bike race to once again feel the electricity that pulses inside of it.

And they are indeed electric, these final meters. I can almost hear the lightning crackle underneath the cheering crowd. And then, a couple of quick turns of the pedals later, it’s over.

A few hours later, walking to my car, something along the hillside that surrounds the velodrome catches my eye: a deep, arcing gouge in the greening grass. It’s a leftover from December’s World Cup cyclocross race, not yet patched by the grounds crew. Cyclocross, I think, has left its indelible mark on Roubaix.

On the street, however, the jumbled web of support cars and team buses has already been disentangled. The race’s final stretch of cobbles, just outside the velodrome complex, is already an ordinary city street again, albeit a largely deserted one. The velodrome remains, of course, but it betrays no sign of the drama that unfolded there earlier today, nor any of the similar dramas that unfolded before today. Just like the 110 editions before it, today’s race has already vanished, existing now only as a series of disjointed impressions in our collective memory.

And it is that impermanence, I have decided in my five years covering cyclocross in Belgium, that makes the sport so beautiful. It’s something that separates road cycling even from its cyclocross cousin. There is no scoreboard and no playing field, there’s nothing but the road. Return to the site of even the most iconic moments and all that’s left to bear witness is the pavement, long since returned to its intended purpose. All that remains are the stories we tell. Once upon a time, we say, something incredible happened right here.

ANS, Belgium (VN) — The steep climbs that punctuate the woods and moors of eastern Belgium have borne witness to tactical battles both real — as in World War II’s furious Battle of the Bulge, which laid siege to Bastogne, the turnaround point of Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège race — and figurative. The difficulty of the terrain, the unpredictability of the weather, the winds that sweep across the open expanses of Belgium’s High Fens region all conspire to lay waste to the best laid plans, sporting and otherwise.

And so it is with the côtes and cols that pepper the second half of the course’s looping 260 kilometers, both their frequency and severity increasing as the race reaches its zenith. Everyone comes prepared to this final race of the classics, but the Ardennes is a place where brilliant plans go to die, and rarely does a team carry out its pre-race strategy as effectively as Garmin-Sharp did in delivering Dan Martin to the biggest win of his career.

Martin was the powerful right cross in a one-two punch set up by Ryder Hesjedal’s breakaway jab on the Côte de Colonster. Garmin’s strategy, executed to perfection by the powerful Canadian rider, laid waste to any other tactic their rivals may have contemplated ahead of the race. Coming into the Colonster, BMC sent half its team to the front, intent on controlling the race for team leader Philippe Gilbert. But Hesjedal’s attack shattered that effort, forcing the remnants of the peloton into a panicked chase up the short but steep Côte de Saint-Nicolas, the final ascent of the race, freeing Martin to ride tempo on the wheels of those left in Hesjedal’s wake.

After the race, Garmin sport director and 1990 Liège–Bastogne–Liège champion Eric Van Lancker praised the duo for their near-flawless teamwork in the race’s finale.

“Every race we do a team meeting and that was the plan today,” he said. “Hesjedal would attack on the Colonster so Dan could stay on the wheels and relax a little bit — if you can ever be relaxed in that part of the race.”

Van Lancker added that today was the culmination of a series of fine team efforts by the Garmin squad. Before today’s victory, he said, the team had not been outmaneuvered by others; rather, bad luck cost them potentially good results.

“I think we did a really great race at Amstel, but we had no result there,” he said. “Also at Flèche we [were good] again and we had really bad luck in the last lap with two flats, so that was really bad … We knew that we were ready, but sometimes you need also to be lucky.

“If you have the legs and you are good, for sure you can come in the finale like we did here. Before the race we knew we could be there in the finale. I didn’t say we could win the race this morning, but we knew the guys were ready.”

The team, he said, was focused on riding not just a tactically smart race, but a patient race as well. When it was clear that the early break would be small — and unlikely to stay away — Garmin held all of its key riders back. Without the massive engine of Johan Van Summered to drive a much more dangerous break for most of the day, as it did in last week’s Amstel Gold Race, Garmin focused on coming into the final kilometers with riders as fresh as they could be.

And, indeed, even Gilbert’s BMC Racing director John Lelangue could only praise Garmin’s simultaneous strength and teamwork in the final 20km of the race.

“Garmin made a great race,” he said. “Nothing more than to congratulate them. We made our tactic. Gilbert was missing a little bit in his legs in the end, and that was the difference.”

So too said Katusha’s Joaquim Rodríguez, the only rider who punctured Garmin’s plans, albeit only momentarily. Rodríguez, missing teammate and Flèche Wallone winner Daniel Moreno, who suffered a mishap at the bottom of the Côte de Saint-Nicolas, executed a quick and effective tactical improvisation of his own. He attacked the leaders with about one kilometer to go, earning a significant gap and ensuring his spot on the podium before Martin stormed past him on the way to an uncontested victory.

“I think I did an almost perfect race,” he said, “thanks also to my team: we adopted a very smart strategy, in my opinion, and we did our best in order to win. I started my rush in the best place, but Martin was able to catch me very quickly and pass me in the last hundred meters. At first, I thought it was [Michele] Scarponi, so I considered to have some chances at the final sprint: but when I realized it was Martin, and how easy he managed to catch me, I understood he would have defeated me.”

Garmin’s final gambit, putting Hesjedal in front to drive the pace in the final kilometers, left Martin fresh for his closing move. Hesjedal, who surely would have relished the win for himself, was the first to congratulate his teammate Martin on the far side of the finish line, and told reporters he was pleased to have been able to position himself so perfectly for the finale.

“When the gap’s growing you always believe,” he said of his hopes for his solo attack at the top of the Colonster, “but just to get a head start, that’s my style: stay on it, get over Saint-Nicolas perfect and still be there. I was able to help Dan, keep that high speed there and give him a chance, and he finished it off. Quite great teamwork.”

Martin, meanwhile, basking in a victory earned in a brilliant final kilometer, said it was only the support of the team, in and out of the race, that had made it possible.

“We had a plan to put Ryder in a breakaway,” he said. “It would have been better if three or four other teams had gone with him, but they missed the move. We caught him at the perfect moment on Saint-Nicolas. He was so strong and he really helped me today.

“The entire team really believed in me. They were telling me all week I could win, even guys who were not at the race. We rode perfect tactics.”

VALKENBURG, Netherlands (VN) — Peter Sagan (Cannondale) may have been the favorite, but perhaps no one came to the start of Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race under as much pressure as BMC’s Philippe Gilbert.

Gilbert narrowly missed out on his first win in the world champion’s rainbow stripes at Wednesday’s Brabantse Pijl, won by Sagan, and told VeloNews last week he had his sights set on the Ardennes classics after slugging his way through a rather anonymous early season.

In 2011 Gilbert launched a remarkable streak at the Brabantse Pijl, which he cemented with a win at Amstel, and rode it through the Ardennes, a Belgian championship, and all the way to a first-stage win in the Tour de France. Last year poor early season form ruined his classics campaign, but his world championships win on these very roads in September of 2012 suggested he was back.

On Sunday, Gilbert did his best to prove he was. Gilbert stormed out of the peloton in pursuit of race leader Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) on the final ascent of the Cauberg, but he fell short. The Belgian was swallowed up by the chase on the finish line, settling for fifth.

Instead of celebrating on the podium, Gilbert, his face darkened by one of the peloton’s first real days in the sun since the classics kicked off last month — and by 250km of accumulated dirt and dust — stood, resting on his bike, exhausted and swarmed by the media, 100 meters past the finish line.

“I tried to attack at the Cauberg,” a disappointed Gilbert told the media scrum. “It was difficult at the end, I didn’t have enough power to close the gap to Kreuziger, and then [Alejandro] Valverde and [Simon] Gerrans came back to me. I was hoping to get on the podium, but then the group came back to us, and I couldn’t do it.”

But the world champion added that, in spite of a finish that was nearly identical to that of the world championship race barely six months ago, uncertainty in the peloton about the changes to the course for this year’s edition of the Amstel race had hurt his overall chances. Race organizers extended the course some 1800 meters past the end of the Cauberg climb.

“There were too many riders together today,” Gilbert said. “The race wasn’t that hard. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time with the new track. The peloton knew the track from the world championships, but it’s the first time for Amstel. Actually it was better before.”

Still, fifth on the first warm day of a remarkably bitter early season may be a promising sign for things to come. Gilbert noted that while many riders suffered the effects of sun, wind, and warm weather, he felt comfortable with his performance. Race favorite Sagan, he speculated, had not adapted as well to summerlike conditions.

“Sagan was the favorite and he let his team [do a lot of] work,” said Gilbert, “but I saw at 50km from the finish Sagan was sweating really hard, and that he wasn’t very good today.”

Yet Gilbert had overcome more than just than warm temperatures today: he was nearly swept up in a disastrous crash just before the race’s second trip up the Cauberg. The world champion managed to get both feet on the ground instead of falling, but broke a wheel and was forced to wait several minutes for a replacement. Though he said the incident was “not that big a problem,” the effort to chase back to the peloton was undeniably costly.

And though Gilbert would surely like to repeat his incredible sweep of years ago, he also recognized that such a feat is likely a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment. Instead, he said, he would be satisfied with a single classics victory next Sunday in a race he called his primary target.

“I think I’m ready for next week,” he said, “because that’s my main goal: Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I feel my condition is improving every day.”

OVERIJSE, Belgium (VN) — Peter Sagan (Cannondale) may have started the day with an apology, but there were no apologies on the short final climb of the Schavei, just a hundred meters shy of the finish of Wednesday’s Brabantse Pijl, the final tune-up before the Ardennes classics kick off with Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race. Sagan answered the one-two final punch of BMC Racing’s Greg Van Avermaet and Philippe Gilbert with a decidedly unapologetic surge for which there was no answer; the 23 year-old Slovak stole what had appeared to be a very likely BMC victory by a couple of tire widths.

For Sagan, it was a win in spite of an imperfect day. His Cannondale squad controlled the pace and kept him largely secure during the quiet, early out-and-back loop across Brussels’ southern suburbs, but was largely absent after two hard trips around the 23-kilometer finishing circuit in Overijse.

When Van Avermaet attacked with 18km to go, Gilbert tight on his wheel, Sagan was forced to cover the attack alone, leaving him isolated, and vulnerable to the very one-two jab he managed to parry in the race’s final moments. If there were any questions about Sagan’s preparation ahead of the Ardennes before today, he dispelled them in his explosive, trademark style.

“Today it was a strange race,” he told the press afterwards. “There was a break, always attacks. On the last lap, we joined the break with Gilbert, [Sylvain] Chavanel. Philippe had an advantage because he had a teammate, and two [Omega] riders. I was alone. I came here today to try my legs, to understand how I feel. I felt very good. I’m happy for this win.”

In fact, said Sagan, he had come to Wednesday’s race to answer his own questions about his form, not to win. But when the door opened on the loopy, twisting hills of Flemish Brabant, he could not resist walking through.

“I thought, ‘[the win is] not my objective, not to race for the win,’” he said. “But when the two riders attacked, I said, ‘now it’s time to go’. The others weren’t working with me, so I tried to go to the front and to see how it went on the last climb.”

And, indeed, he also admitted that in being drawn into the fight, he may have burned a few matches he had planned to keep in the box for Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race in the nearby Limburg region of the Netherlands. But Wednesday’s 200km parcours, packed with 25 steep, short climbs seemed tailor-made for a puncheur like Sagan, and it would be hard to imagine one of cycling’s most aggressive riders simply sitting up while the world champion powered away.

On his prospects for Sunday’s race, 50 kilometers longer and featuring a good deal more climbing, Sagan told the press he wasn’t certain.

“It’s hard to [predict] because maybe I used too much energy today,” he said. “For sure, this race was a good try.”

Sagan was third at the Amstel Gold Race a year ago behind Enrico Gasparotto (Astana) and Jelle Vanendert (Lotto-Belisol).

Gilbert himself said in post-race interviews on Wednesday that he thought Amstel’s extra length would benefit him and perhaps prove difficult for less experienced riders like Sagan. And the Cannondale rider seemed to agree that Gilbert would be more dangerous in the coming week, when he starts Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, than he was today.

“Philippe is a big rider, he knows what he needs to do to come into condition for Amstel, Flèche and Liège,” said Sagan. “He’ll be stronger there. Me? I don’t know. I don’t know how strong I will be.”

Still, it would be hard to imagine Sagan, who added that he skipped Paris-Roubaix specifically to focus on his preparation for next week’s races, not being part of the battle. And, he hoped, so would his team. Key lieutenants Damiano Caruso and Moreno Moser are coming off of a team training camp at altitude, and focused today on adjusting to riding at race pace rather than delivering their leader to a win.

But perhaps Sagan’s reluctance to place himself ahead of the world champion on the favorites list for Amstel was part of a broader effort to rein in his more puckish impulses. Sagan appeared genuinely embarrassed about the reproachful reaction to his podium antics following the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders), and his apology to Maja Leye at the race sign-in this morning seemed genuine as well. In victory he seemed toned-down as well: he simply raised his arms in the air, no wheelie, running man, or bicep flexing.

And if Sagan is cultivating a more low-key image, his downplaying of his chances on Sunday is likely part of the restraint. Sagan stood on the podium at last year’s edition, and surely has no plans to take a step back. They give the same beer to everybody on the podium at Amstel — a fact that Sagan noted in his post-race interview today — and he no doubt noticed that his third-place bottle nonetheless was not quite as sweet as the bottle on the top step.

ROUBAIX, France (VN) — When prognosticators guessed that a former cyclocross star might be a major factor on the Paris-Roubaix cobbles on Sunday, they were largely thinking of Lars Boom (Blanco), who rode to a convincing top 10 in last year’s edition of the race.

Few, if any, guessed that Roubaix rookie Zdenek Stybar would be the only man capable of covering favorite Fabian Cancellara’s bid for race victory. But when the big Swiss surged out of a group of Roubaix favorites, it was the Czech two-time cyclocross world champion who went with him.

Likewise, when team leader and defending champion Tom Boonen crashed out of the Ronde van Vlaanderen last week, few guessed that his Omega Pharma-Quick Step squad would be the team that delivered the most exciting — and simultaneously the most star-crossed — racing in Roubaix.

Absent Boonen, the team chose to simply pour fire into the race. They threw everything they had at the front in an effort to disrupt RadioShack-Leopard’s plans to control the race until Cancellara delivered his fatal blow.

They succeeded. Omega Pharma put no fewer than five men into the fray. First was Geert Steegmans, one of only two survivors of an early break that lasted until there was barely an hour left in the race, keeping the pressure off Omega Pharma’s pinch-hitting leader, Sylvain Chavanel.

But Chavanel suffered a mechanical at perhaps the most inopportune moment possible, missing the decisive split and leaving the race in the hands of teammates Stybar, Stijn Vandenbergh, and Niki Terpstra.

Still, with three strong cards left to play and barely 20km left in the race, Omega Pharma’s hand appeared to be trump. Vandenbergh worked himself into a late break with Blanco’s Sep Vanmarcke, while Stybar, in the chase group, marked Cancellara’s every move.

“I was actually in a perfect situation,” said Stybar after the finish. “I had Stijn in front, so I didn’t have to pull, I was just following Cancellara, and I had really perfect legs. I was really feeling very good.”

The one-two punch may have been enough to stagger Cancellara, still suffering the effects of two crashes earlier in the week. Instead, disaster struck on the cobbles. First, Vandenbergh, riding in the gutter, clipped a fan on the side of the road, landing hard, sliding on his back on the cobbles. Moments later, Cancellara and Stybar joined Vanmarcke at the front.

“Then we were only with three away, so I was like, ‘Oh, dammit, I think I am here one of the fastest,’ so I was really focusing on what I can do in the final,” Stybar said. “Niki was behind me, so I didn’t have to pull at all. So I was really in a super situation.”

But it was not to be. Stybar, too, ran afoul of a fan. His shifter hit a fan’s telephoto lens and he shot across the road, barely in control. Though he miraculously stayed upright, the encounter opened a gap that he could not close. Stybar chased valiantly, but ineffectively, then drifted back through no-man’s land, his podium hopes dashed.

With Terpstra riding comfortably in the chase group, the team still had a final shot for the podium; the Dutch rider would go on to hold off Belgium’s Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) in the finale on the track, perhaps salvaging an otherwise dismal season for the Belgian squad.

After the race, feelings were decidedly mixed, but the message was clear.

“I’m really happy to be on the podium, of course,” said Terpstra. “The team was really strong, and on the podium we [could have had] Stijn Vandenbergh or Zdenek Stybar too. So I think we could have played a really nice tactical game in the final. In the end I’m happy.”

Stybar, visibly emotional about the near miss as he rested on his bike on the side of Roubaix’s legendary velodrome, said he also believed the team had proven something today.

“I think we did as a team a really perfect job,” he said. “Every time, already from kilometer zero, there was always someone in the breakaway and there was not once a group without our team. So I think after the bad luck with Tom Boonen we proved we could do a really good job as a team. And all the group was really very focused and very motivated already these last days and weeks, but we had always pretty bad luck.”

But the 27-year-old Czech, riding the classics for the first time, said for him the race had also been an opportunity to prove himself.

“You know,” he said, “after Flanders I felt that my shape was really exceptional. I think that it was [the best condition of my life] those last few weeks, but I never could really prove it. And today I think finally I let [everybody] see that I made a good move to change from cyclocross to road, especially for this kind of race.”

So, too, said team manager Patrick Lefevre. It was chance, not simply strength, he said, that had determined the outcome today.

“We had a very strong team,” he said. “Probably the best team in the race, but to be the best team is not enough to win; you need some luck. But today the luck was not with us, like the whole year. I can also say, that the team did great, doing the race without a real leader.”

Indeed, Omega Pharma’s 2013 campaign may be the very embodiment of cycling’s cobbled monuments. You can build a perfect team and a perfect plan and maybe even a perfect plan B. But on the cobbles all you can do is ride your heart out. The rest is in the hands of fate.

“This race,” said Stybar, who finished sixth after nearly tasting the biggest victory of his young road career, “once we hit all those cobbles and I saw the crowds, I was like, yeah, it’s really like you need to be lucky and you need to be strong, focused for every single second.

“And on one moment you can lose everything or you can win everything. You don’t know what’s waiting behind the corner.”

OUDENAARDE, Belgium (VN) — If Bernhard Eisel’s seventh place in Ghent-Wevelgem last weekend was a blow to Team Sky’s aspirations for classics success, Sunday’s Ronde van Vlaanderen might qualify as a disaster.

On paper, with a lineup that included Geraint Thomas, Ian Stannard, and Edvald Boasson Hagen, the team seemed a serious contender for victory. But one need look no further than the reversals of fortune for Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Leopard) in 2012 and Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) this year to see how hard it is to match performance on the cobbles to expectations on paper.

So too it was for Sky, which limped away from Oudenaarde with only Boasson Hagen’s 17th place — and plenty of disappointed faces — to show for a long, cold Sunday in the saddle.

Thomas’ hopes for victory at Flanders evaporated at the end of his second trip up the Kwaremont. The Welshman was glued to the wheel of Peter Sagan (Cannondale) when a bump from his right sent him pinballing across the course to his left, where he made contact with another rider and instantly hit the deck.

Aided by teammate Salvatore Puccio, he launched a furious effort that put him back in contact with the peloton on the slopes of the Paterberg, but the chase cost him his final match, leaving him nothing else to burn when Cancellara and Sagan surged away from the bunch.

“There’s just nothing to say,” said Thomas, clearly disappointed, outside the team bus after the race. “You spend all day staying out of trouble, and the boys — and Luke — looked after me really well and everything was right. The legs felt good and I was ready to give it a good go, but at the top of the Kwaremont … boom, I went down. It just took a lot of energy to get back.”

Thomas’ misfortune shifted the team’s focus to Boasson Hagen, who managed to claw his way into perfect position behind Cancellara and Sagan in time for the decisive move.

But he was overmatched by Cancellara’s vicious attack. The Norwegian national champion looked defeated at the finish of the race, but struck a more philosophical note in an interview and hour later.

“I was at the right place, but the legs weren’t there … it was too hard for me,” he said. “I was at the right places most of the time, so I’m satisfied with that. I’m pretty happy, but the result is nothing. But I was at the right place, and that’s good.”

Still, the late-race damage weighed more heavily psychologically than physically for a team that rallied valiantly from a bad week to put so many of its riders within striking distance of one of cycling’s biggest prizes.

A stomach ailment ripped through the team in the run-up to Flanders, leaving the team’s security system for Thomas and Boasson Hagen on shaky ground from the outset of the race. But the team nonetheless put both riders in position to win and neither managed to deliver.

Six hard hours in the Flemish Ardennes in near-freezing weather will exact a heavy toll on an ailing team that has seen its hopes dashed twice in eight days. Will it be a price too steep for a team with real hopes on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, now just a week away?

Sky sport director Servaes Knaven said no.

“A bike race is a bike race, Sagan was favorite today and he got second,” said Knaven. “There are more favorites for (next) Sunday, but we’re not going to worry — that’s not a good thing. We believe in the team and they believe in themselves, and Sunday is a totally different race. We will have good morale for Sunday again.”

Still, Knaven acknowledged that, despite the team’s promising roster, earning classics results equal to their stage-race successes would not be easy.

“I think it was going really well, but we also have to maybe admit that Fabian and Sagan at that moment were better,” he said. “And I think everybody, our captains, like [Geraint] and [Edvald] are in good shape. But when you’re in the wheel and they drop you, then they are better. And then you see that Sagan got dropped on the Paterberg, so you know Fabian is better.”

Sky riders said they planned to rest and recover this week, looking to return to health for a tune-up at Scheldeprijs on Wednesday in Antwerp, Belgium, before making the short transfer to France to recon the Paris-Roubaix course on Thursday.

If the team can rally — and stay healthy — it will arrive at next Sunday’s start in Compiegne, France, with the same squad that carried two riders to within striking distance of a major upset in Flanders despite bad luck. If Sky can do that much again, and it likely will — the team’s biggest strength is its consistency — it may just have a chance at that elusive classics prize.

Boasson Hagen, possibly Sky’s best chance in Roubaix, said that despite his disappointment in Flanders, he was counting the days until his next test on the cobbles.

“I look forward to Sunday,” he said. “So we’ll see. I’m getting stronger every year, so hopefully I can be up there this year.”

BRUSSELS (VN) — The 2012-13 cyclocross season ended under cloudy skies and steadily falling snow in Oostmalle, Belgium, on Sunday, perhaps a fitting finale for a season in which racers endured one of the longest stretches of bad weather in Belgian history. December 2012 broke the nation’s monthly rainfall record and January, meanwhile, nearly tied the record for the most days with snowfall. It was a grueling season, a season of mud and of cold — and of spectacular, thrilling racing.

On Sunday, racers looked back at the highlights of what may be soon remembered as a golden year for international cyclocross.

Among those who landed on the podium on Sunday, more than one pointed to the fifth round of the bpost Bank Trofee series, in Loenhout, Belgium, as a season highlight. Both the day and series’ men’s and women’s winners, Sanne Cant (Enertherm-BKCP) and Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) called the massively attended Kerstperiode race in Loenhout their best of the year.

“(Katie) Compton and (Marianne) Vos were both there,” said Cant, referring to the two most successful female riders of the season — if not all-time — both of whom struggled in Loenhout. “And I beat them. I think it was the biggest victory of my career.”

Albert, who earned 13 victories on the year, chose the race because of the presence of a different rival, two-time world champion Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), who made a brief return to cyclocross in December and January after shifting his focus to the road in 2012.

“(Loenhout) was in the last lap a very hard race between me and Stybar,” said Albert. “It was a nice race, and it’s one that I like. Maybe that’s one of my biggest wins of the year.”

For fans, however, Loenhout may be remembered for another singular image: then-Belgian champion Sven Nys’ (Crelan-Euphony) foray into the crowds that packed the course to confront a fan who had repeatedly thrown beer at him. Nys, hit by a half-empty cup of beer on the course’s heaviest stretch of mud, made a U-turn and stepped off his bike. Laying it down at the side of the course, he ducked under the tape and calmly spoke to the offender before returning to the race. The dramatic turn sparked an earnest discussion among promoters, racers, and fans about rider safety in races that are sometimes mobbed by rowdy, beer-drinking fans, and triggered modifications to barriers along a number of popular courses to minimize the chances of a repeat.

Despite the attention it earned him, for Nys, Loenhout — the beginning of a week of illness that eventually forced him to forego the start of his namesake race in Baal — was perhaps the only forgettable stretch of a remarkable season. The 36-year-old owned men’s elite cyclocross, claiming 18 individual wins, the Superprestige overall, and his second world title. But Nys picked the race that effectively launched his remarkable run, in Oudenaarde, as the highlight of his season.

“The Koppenberg,” Nys said without hesitation, when asked about his best moment of the season. “The acceleration the last lap against the world champion at that moment, that’s the moment I liked the most this season.”

Nys and Albert rode a vicious duel at the Koppenbergcross, battling up and down the slopes of one of Belgian cycling’s most infamous hills and through a freak thunderstorm that hit during the final laps. Though the two had been equally matched for most of the race, Albert could not maintain traction on the rain-slick final climb, and Nys roared away from him on his way to his ninth career win on the Koppenberg.

Nys’ win on the first day of November was the beginning of an 18-race stretch that netted him 11 victories and only two missed podiums, once again cementing his reputation as the greatest active ’cross racer in the world. It also persuaded him not to walk away from the sport quite yet. Nys, who had planned to retire at the end of next year, announced on Sunday that he would continue for at least another season beyond that. And cyclocross fans around the world rejoiced.

Nonetheless, Nys’ success is nothing new. So, it was the man who finished third on the Koppenberg — Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Napoleon Games) — who might have earned the award for the biggest breakthrough of the season.

Vantornout, a perennial podium contender with few major wins on his palmares, rode to his first Belgian title with an explosive race on the sandy shores of Zilvermeer in Mol. Vantornout won with a lightning surge on the final climb of the race, earning a gap of several seconds that nobody could answer. He might have taken his streak of impressive form further, but a minor bobble on the final lap of the world championship race in Louisville, Kentucky, cost him any chance at a world title as well; instead he would settle for his second worlds silver.

Not surprisingly, Vantornout marked the Belgian championship race not just as a season highlight, but the highlight of his career.

“It was my best season ever, but my championship jersey is the top — it’s a dream come true,” he said.

But for the Americans — at least two of them who spend most of their time in Europe — it was an American moment that stole the season. Both Amy Dombroski (Telenet-Fidea) and Jonathan Page named the Louisville world championships as the best moment of the season.

Page, who won a fourth national title in Verona, Wisconsin, in January said that race was certainly a highlight, but nothing could match the support he got from the home fans at Eva Bandman Park.

“Nationals was great,” he said, “but the crowd at the world championships was even that much better. It was awesome.”

Dombroski, who recently signed a contract extension with Telenet and will remain based in Europe for at least two more years, said she would have to find new goals after years of singular focus on the 2013 worlds.

“Louisville was, by far, the highest point,” she told VeloNews. “In my life it’s the highest. Not everyone gets to race a world championships in their own country, and from the date it was announced it’s been a build to that. Starting three years ago, every day I woke up it was like, ‘This is training in the bank for Louisville,’ and all the pain and suffering and emotion and everything… has been for Louisville. It was really special.”

Editor’s note: Dan Seaton has been literally crawling through the Belgian mud covering European cyclocross since 2008. Each week this season he’ll look ahead to the weekend’s races and answer your questions about ’cross on the other side of the Atlantic. Got a question for your favorite Euro star? Want to know the inside story about the legendary Flemish fields? Send your questions to crossland@competitorgroup.com. Emails to this address were being bounced earlier this fall, so if you tried to email and didn’t hear back, please do try again.

BRUSSELS (VN) — This week’s column is a milestone: it’s the 20th edition of Crossland, marking nearly five months of answering your Euro ’cross questions.

With the world championships behind us and only two weekends of serious racing left, even most Belgian cycling fans are thinking ahead to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the annual kickoff of the road season in the low countries, scheduled the day before the finale of the bpost Bank Trofee cyclocross series in Oostmalle.

And to be honest, there’s not much suspense left, despite the handful of races still to be run. Most prominent are next weekend’s season finale in Oostmalle and Saturday’s Hansgrohe Superprestige finale in Middelkerke. Sven Nys (Crelan-Euphony) holds a nearly insurmountable 10-point lead in the Superprestige; only a finish outside of the top 10 would leave him even remotely vulnerable to runner-up Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus). So, regardless of what happens out on the Belgian coast in Middelkerke, Nys’ 12th Superprestige title — and the €72,500 prize for the overall victory — are likely secure.

Meanwhile, Albert leads the Trofee series, which is decided on overall race time, by 5:12 over Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Napoleon Games). Since the maximum allowed loss due to a single race result is five minutes, Albert is nearly invincible. There is a pathway for Pauwels to steal the overall, but only if he can win the intermediate sprint, which comes with a 15-second bonus and win the race, finishing at least five minutes ahead of Albert. Not a likely scenario. Albert should be on course for his first career victory in one of the two major European series next weekend.

Now to one of your questions. It’s a big one, and an important one for the future of cyclocross.

The future of Euro cyclocross

Dear Dan,
Aurelien Duval says he’s retiring from cyclocross because he can’t find a team for next year. Jonathan Page, the American national champion and a one-time worlds medalist, has been riding this season without a main sponsor. With a big influx of young talent to the elite level, a lot of top riders like Niels Albert, Rob Peeters, and Tom Meeusen with the potential to keep going strong for another decade, and no really big new teams on the horizon, where can all these young riders go? How sustainable is elite European cyclocross?
—Horacio in Madison

Horacio,
Let’s leave Duval aside for the moment since his struggles are a bit of a special case. He served a two-year suspension after testing positive for the banned stimulant norfenfluramine in 2009, which might have played a role in teams’ lack of interest in him.

Page, who signed a bike deal with Fuji in January, continues to search for a sponsor, but hasn’t walked away from the sport. He’s a guy who, in my opinion, deserves better: a dedicated father, hard worker, and a tough-as-nails racer who is warm and generous off the bike. But Page also, since he splits his time on two continents, is a bit of a special case. Page raced one year in the Sunweb colors, but found team management unsupportive of goals that included races in the States and a mid-season trip for the national championships, which, at the time, were held in early December. I have no doubt that the national champion will not race next year without a title sponsor, but, for better or worse, he’ll chart a course outside of the established European powers.

So let’s also put him on the shelf and consider the heart of your question, which I think is a valid one.

The recent history of Belgian cyclocross has been ruled by a handful of teams. The teams, currently called Crelan-Euphony, Sunweb-Napoleon Games, Telenet-Fidea, and BKCP-Powerplus, have hosted every major contender and won nearly every podium place in Europe in recent years. On top of that, Crelan’s management has suggested that, absent a new team leader, the organization may fold once its superstar, Sven Nys, retires at the end of next season. The market for cyclocross, at least in Belgium’s northern region of Flanders, is pretty well saturated, so how can the sport grow?

Let’s start with the young guys. To be sure, there are a few clear talents among the juniors and U23s. Dutch junior Mathieu van der Poel seems destined for greatness, American Logan Owen has shown impressive skill and savvy, and Belgian Wietse Bosmans and Dutch U23 world champion Mike Teunissen have shown promise. And Lars van der Haar, racing as an elite at 21, is a bona fide star already.

But the truth is, the path from the developmental ranks to professional success is not an easy one to navigate. Many promising riders abandon cyclocross for more lucrative careers on the road or mountain bike. Some simply fail to make the transition smoothly or find other interests as adults. Those who are already on course for success are mostly already affiliated with teams that will help them make that transition. In fact, of the riders I’ve listed, Owen is the only one not signec with one of the four major Belgian players or the Dutch Rabobank squad. My sense is that the sport is welcoming the next generation pretty warmly.

What of the established riders? At 36, Sven Nys plans to retire next year. Gerben De Knegt is 37, Page is 36, Bart Wellens is 34, Francis Mourey is 32 — even Belgian champ Klaas Vantornout and Bart Aernouts are 30. And not all of them will have the near-superhuman career longevity that Nys has enjoyed. The role of experience, skill, and maturity in producing champion cyclocross riders keeps the equation balanced for older riders longer than it might be in other sports, but eventually everybody starts to feel the gravity of age, the lure of a life of normalcy, of being able to just go ahead and drink a beer with your feet up out on the terrace on a sunny October afternoon. Soon enough these guys will all make way for the new stars of the sport.

And the teams? The situation isn’t quite as bleak as it seems. It’s true, the big four teams win a lot, but Jan Denuwelaere took a big win for his Style & Concept team in Essen in December and Bart Aernouts and Thijs van Amerongen posted solid results for AA Drink-Leontien.nl this season. Meanwhile, Kwadro-Stannah, a new squad and an offshoot of BKCP-Powerplus, intended as a supportive home for non-Belgian riders, has gotten nothing but top-10 results out of Radomir Simunek since its inception in January. Even Rabobank continues to support solid young riders like van der Haar and women like Marianne Vos, even as it abandons its WorldTour road team.

Belgium, in particular, is a market where sponsoring a top cyclocrosser can earn a brand real, serious exposure. The Sunweb and BKCP logos are as familiar to ’cross fans as the massive John Hancock logo atop the scoreboard at Fenway Park to Red Sox fans. At least as long as Belgians continue to dominate the sport, it seems likely sponsors will continue to flood Belgian cyclocross with money.

And then what? The sport, as it has done more than once in the past, will find a new center of gravity — Switzerland, the Czech Republic, maybe even the United States.

Is its future nothing but roses and daffodils? Probably not. Cyclocross may yet have to face its own doping ghosts, of the past or a still hidden present. Good riders will struggle to find support. Old stars will retire. Popular and historic races will fail financially and disappear from the calendar. But the sport will find new heroes — van der Haars and Owens and van der Poels — to take their places. New and dramatic races will become the stuff of legend, just as Ronse and Namur and Louisville, Kentucky, have done in the past few years.

Cyclocross, a sport with more than a century of history, has seen times of abundance and times of privation. It endured two world wars. It has embraced new technology even as it holds fast to its roots. In the past decade it has entered a new era of global appeal, one emphatically capped by the successful world championships in Louisville not two weeks ago.

My prediction: cyclocross, in all its muddy glory, is here to stay.

Crossland, on the other hand, is closing up shop (and maybe headed for a little vacation in the Swiss Alps). VeloNews will still bring you all the race action as the two big series wrap up, but this is the final edition of my column for the 2012-13 season. Before I go, allow me to say two big thank yous. First, thank you to all my loyal readers, especially those who sent in questions for me to answer this season. And, second, thank you to VeloNews.com editor Brian Holcombe, for giving me this platform to talk about ‘cross. Launching this column was his idea, and it’s been both incredibly fun and incredibly gratifying for me to write.

Thanks everybody. See you out there in the mud!

Editor’s note: Dan Seaton has been literally crawling through the Belgian mud covering European cyclocross since 2008. Each week this season he’ll look ahead to the weekend’s races and answer your questions about ’cross on the other side of the Atlantic. Got a question for your favorite Euro star? Want to know the inside story about the legendary Flemish fields? Send your questions to crossland@competitorgroup.com.

BRUSSELS (VN) — The world championships may be over, but cyclocross isn’t. With two major series — the bpost Bank Trofee and the Hansgrohe Superprestige — still to be decided, hardcore ’cross fans don’t have to say goodbye to the mud just yet. When we last visited these two Belgian series, 2012 world champion Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) was pulling away from the rest of the field in the Trofee series with good rides in Loenhout and Baal and climbing to within striking distance of Sven Nys (Crelan-Euphony) in the Superprestige series with a win under the lights in Diegem.

This weekend we revisit both, with the penultimate round of each series. On Saturday the Trofee series returns with a sandy, lakeside race in Lille, in northeast Belgium. On Sunday it’s the Superprestige, in Hoogstraten, on the Dutch border, just a few kilometers due north of Lille.

At this time of the season, especially just days after a tough transfer back from North America, the races are especially hard to predict. Obviously Nys, the new world champion, will be motivated to deliver a good ride for the home fans, especially on Sunday where he can extend his five-point lead with a win. However, Albert could at least partially redeem his disappointing eighth-place ride at the worlds with a good finish, particularly if he can pull it off in Hoogstraten, where there is a chance to pull back a few of the points on Nys. (Albert’s nearly four-minute lead in the Trofee series, which is decided on cumulative time, is, barring a complete disaster, more or less insurmountable.)

Lille, on the other hand, is just down the street from Vorselaar, the home of Bart Wellens (Telenet-Fidea), who was fourth at worlds and already won a minor race in Maldegem on Wednesday. If Wellens’ form remains good and the near-home race provides inspiration, he could earn his first major series win since 2011 this weekend. Indeed, the final weeks of the season have provided fertile ground for good results by underdogs. Nonetheless, Nys said immediately after winning his world championship in Louisville that he was already thinking of the final races of the season. And I’d be very surprised if we don’t see him fighting for the win both on Saturday and Sunday.

Now, let’s turn to one of your questions.

Mechanic’s role

Dear Dan,
On Saturday we saw two good races undone by mechanical problems, one for Jonathan Page and one for Kevin Pauwels, which got me thinking about the role of the mechanics in cyclocross. What can you tell us about who they are and what they do?
—Will in Pennsylvania

Will,
That’s not a simple question to answer, because different riders have very different relationships with their support teams. Some mechanics do everything, building and maintaining bikes throughout the season, while others are just race day support. Some of the best wrenches can act as coaches, managers, and support crew all at once, reading a rider’s race and making adjustments on the fly if they sense something is off in his or her performance. But, whatever the relationship, there’s no doubt it is a very important one, and we’ve seen how much it can hurt a rider when something goes wrong mechanically or logistically.

Remember, for example, Sven Nys’ 2010 season, where everything that could go wrong, mechanically and logistically, did? Just three examples: Nys nearly lost a race in Niel because his pit crew was not ready with a clean bike, had a pedal snap off during the sprint in Gieten, and crashed in the pits in Loenhout because his mechanic grabbed the bike a fraction of a second too early.

Despite those hiccups, Nys has stuck with his mechanic, a 70-year-old volunteer named Fons Wouters, for nearly two decades. Mistakes, he told the press, are inevitable during a career that has netted some 300 wins, but a trustworthy mechanic, one who understands your needs and can make quick, mid-race adjustments to a bike, is not so easy to find.

Jonathan Page has a similar relationship with his mechanic and friend, Franky Van Haesebroucke. Page says he does almost all his own wrenching outside of race day, maintaining bikes and gluing tires himself, with only occasional help from Van Haesebroucke, who also serves as European sport director for the Pro Continental Champion System team, when things get too busy for one person. The two have worked together nearly for Page’s entire professional career, and can communicate well enough for Van Haesebroucke to know when to make a mid-race tire pressure change or pull a bike that isn’t performing properly, even if there’s no time to actually talk about the problem. More than once a quick adjustment like that has helped boost Page to a top result.

This kind of relationship is pretty typical in pro cyclocross, where, just as in the amateur ranks, mechanics are often family members or close friends, are invariably volunteers, and are usually one of the racer’s most ardent supporters. More than once, for example, I’ve seen Marianne Vos’ father working the pits for her at a major race.

All this is to say that it’s difficult to point a finger at anybody for the mechanical troubles that derailed Page and Pauwels last weekend. Van Haesebroucke told me he had not built up Page’s brand new Fuji Altamira CX 1.0, but nonetheless felt personally responsible when things went wrong. Pauwels’ case is a little less clear, since it was the second time in as many races that a problem with a jammed chain ended his bid for a big race win. Was it a misadjustment by a mechanic who should have been aware of the potential for trouble after the first jam in the World Cup finale in Hoogerheide, Netherlands? Incidentally, a Shimano representative told VeloNews on Saturday that Pauwels was the only Di2 rider near the front of the race using a non-Shimano chain.

Regardless of what happened and why, you can bet that the person who took it hardest was probably Pauwels’ number one fan and supporter, his mechanic.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (VN) — It took some serious bailing out — of more than one variety — to do it, but the first UCI Elite Cyclocross World Championships held outside of Europe was an almost unmitigated success.

A team of more than 20 workers bailed out the waters along the banks of Badger Creek, working furiously to keep the worlds course at Eva Bandman Park dry during the condensed race schedule on Saturday. And only months ahead of the races, USA Cycling bailed out the event financially after original sponsor Exergy failed to meet its financial obligations to promoters late last year. The fallout from both debacles was fodder for critics ahead of the championships this weekend, but in the end, there were few complaints. Instead, the worlds was elevated by the energy and enthusiasm of the roughly 10,000 fans who lined the muddy, half-frozen course for six hours on Saturday.

“For me, (winning in the United States) is really special,” said Sven Nys, the first elite man to win a championship outside of Europe, and something of an elder statesman of the sport. “To win here is maybe more special than to win in my home country. Definitely, that’s also something special, with maybe 60,000 people, while here there were maybe five, six, seven thousand. But I felt myself, the whole week, really, really relaxed. And the respect I got from everybody over here helped me a lot.”

Nys’ reaction to the outpouring of support was hardly unique. Racer after racer, most more accustomed to the cloud of silence that envelops anyone not at the front of the field in European races than the ebullient atmosphere of American ’cross, said the sheer volume along the course was overwhelming.

“It was unbelievable,” said Amy Dombroski, an American rider for the Belgium-based Telenet-Fidea team, who has spent most of her last two seasons overseas, after finishing 11th. “I’m kind of choked up right now. It was absolutely deafening; my ears were actually hurting. It was absolutely unbelievable racing here, and I think America really came out, so it was exciting. It was a big thing for America.”

Though the course was dotted with pockets of European fans — Belgians, Dutch, Swiss, French, and Czechs who had made the long trip for the championships — it was Americans who carried the day. The home fans screamed themselves hoarse, furiously rang their cowbells, and waved signs and oversized cutouts of rider photos in support of the men and women on the course. It was, without a doubt, one of the most frenzied championships in the 63-year history of ’cross worlds.

And though there were hiccups — the emergency schedule change and long lines for the relatively scarce concessions among others — fans almost uniformly said the race experience was positive.

Matt Haughey, who traveled to the race from Portland, Oregon, and also made the trip to Koksijde, Belgium, for last year’s championships, said he had enjoyed himself.

“For a first-time cyclocross worlds in the U.S., it was a pretty good show,” he said. “The crowd was louder than the Koksijde crowds of 62,000 last year, mostly due to Americans chanting and hollering for everyone, not sitting quietly and politely clapping for their favorites like I saw in Belgium. I had a good time and was glad I went; the races felt worlds caliber.”

Nicole Swan, from Fort Collins, Colorado, said much the same, highlighting the friendly, community atmosphere at the race and all the associated events in Louisville.

“I got to be part of the whole experience, which was incredible,” she told VeloNews. “Just being out among all the other people who love cyclocross as much as I do was amazing.

“The race course was great. Spectating was great. The races were amazing. And it was really fun to see lesser-known athletes from countries that aren’t as well known for cyclocross. To cheer for them was really neat.”

So, was the first American ’cross worlds a success?

The answer is almost unequivocally yes. Admittedly, there were problems in the run-up to the event and on race day. Not everything went off without a hitch, and the emergency schedule change was definitely an embarrassment for race promoters. But the dedication of the city workers who kept the course out of the quickly rising water saved the race, and as the course filled up with water on Sunday, racers and fans alike agreed the change was the right call.

More importantly, in every race, the best rider won. Racers and fans called the course a real “European” cyclocross: a track demanding both technically and physically. And Sven Nys, Marianne Vos, Mike Teunissen, and Mathieu van der Poel each were clearly the best, both on the day, and throughout the season. No one is likely to question the legitimacy of the four “American” titles — at least insofar as the course conditions and depth of the race fields went in determining race outcome.

And if producing a dramatic race and an event that pleased fans and riders alike is the definition of success for a championships, then Louisville was wildly successful. On to Richmond, Virginia, in 2015.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (VN) — For Sven Nys, considered by some to be the greatest cyclocross rider in history, the sport’s greatest prize — the rainbow-striped world champion’s jersey — has long remained elusive.

Until Saturday, despite being by far the most consistently successful rider in the sport, Nys had won just a single world championship, in Sankt Wendel, Germany, in 2005. On Saturday, nearly a decade later, Nys claimed his second. Fittingly, given’s the 37-year-old’s status as an elder statesman for the sport, dedicated to promoting the growth of cyclocross globally, it was also the first elite men’s championship title ever awarded outside Europe.

“For me, it’s really special,” he said in a post-race press conference. “I’m not the youngest any more. I try to do a lot for international cyclocross all throughout the year, to promote our sport. And to win here is maybe more special than to win in my home country.

“Definitely, that’s also something special, with maybe 60,000 people, while here there were maybe five, six, seven thousand. But I felt myself, the whole week, really, really relaxed. And the respect I got from everybody over here helped me a lot. I hope after my career I can do a lot for cyclocross, also outside of Belgium.”

If Nys has grown into a role as an international spokesman for the sport, his ascent was driven by the wild support of legions of fans in his home country of Belgium, where he has near-iconic stature. But it was also driven by his almost superhuman consistency, which itself derives from his ability to deliver big results in almost any conditions and at any time of year. That consistency has netted him dozens of major series wins, eight national cyclocross titles and some 300 individual wins.

Nys has long argued that his goal is to be good in every race, and that world championships, while a special prize, are not a primary target for him. He told VeloNews as much after today’s race.

“It’s really nice to win this race,” he said, “but next week there’s another race, and I want to win also, and for my career [another championship] was not necessary anymore. I won so many races, I was totally relaxed today. And it was definitely special to win here — and yeah, it’s a really nice day — but people like me also when I’m not a world champion.”

After finishing seventh at the 2012 world championship race in Koksijde, Belgium — a race he was heavily favored to win — the disappointed Nys said he was finished with world championships. But a campaign by American fans to bring the sport’s biggest star to the championships in Louisville helped to persuade him not to walk away.

Even before the race, Nys said he was glad to have made the trip. On Saturday, he reiterated those sentiments, saying he was impressed by the support and enthusiasm of the mostly American crowd.

“For the world championships in Belgium, there were more people,” he said. “But over here I didn’t feel that there were 20,000 or 30,000 people less. It was a good atmosphere, everybody was yelling for all the riders, and that’s what we want. We want a positive atmosphere to race our world championships, and I felt that.

“So for me, the race, the organization, what they did today, with all the stress they’ve had with the weather, it worked.”

On his way to the second championship, Nys benefited from the misfortune of two of his countrymen. First was Kevin Pauwels, who suffered his second technical disaster in as many races.

A mechanical at the end of a snowy World Cup race in Hoogerheide, Netherlands, cost Pauwels any chance at the overall World Cup title. On Saturday, he found himself at the side of the course trying to free a stuck chain while the race simply streamed away from him.

Second was Klaas Vantornout, whose brief tangle with a course fence in the final minutes of the race gave Nys the gap he needed to go clear for the win. Nys, himself no stranger to misfortune at championship races, including a costly fall in Hooglede-Gits, Belgium, in 2007 that resulted from a collision with a plastic block knocked onto the course by a television moto, said he nonetheless believed he would have won anyway.

“I race a lot with Klaas, I know him. You need to use your experience,” he said. “I know normally I’m the fastest of the two, that’s positive, but normally it’s not a sprint over here. You need to be in the front in the last lap, and try to have a gap before the obstacles, because there I was the strongest.

“When I have a gap before the obstacles, it was favorable for me to win the race. That’s also what happened.”

Nys argued that it was his experience and tactical sense — not just his power on the bike — that won the race. And, indeed, the so-called Kannibaal van Baal rode an impressively patient and savvy race. He and his Belgian teammates slowly reeled in Frenchman Francis Mourey’s early escape, then Nys parried attacks until Vantornout’s momentary lapse opened the door for victory, a door Nys immediately slammed shut.

“This is a victory that I earned — it’s a victory of experience for me, not only power,” he said.

Nys, who has one year remaining on his contract with trade team Crelan-Euphony before he can contemplate retirement, said the second championship would tidily cap his career, but that he remains hungry for wins and would continue to be a factor next season.

“There is a new motivation to try to win as many races as possible in the world champion’s jersey,” he said. “Mentally I’m young. My body is a little bit older, but mentally I feel myself to be still young. Every day I’m motivated to train hard to focus on my job. And for me this is not a job, it’s a hobby, and I like to do it.

“[After] next year we’ll see. But definitely next year I’ll be strong enough to win.”

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (VN) — The seven elite men of the Belgian National Team found their preparation upended Friday morning when race organizers in Louisville made the remarkable announcement that the UCI Elite Cyclocross World Championships would be consolidated into a single day of racing in anticipation of heavy flooding on Sunday.

Though the schedule change affects each race delegation’s training and medal hopes equally, the Belgians, heavy favorites in the race now scheduled for Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET, may have felt the effects as acutely as any of the 19 delegations on the start list — save, perhaps, for the host country’s American contingent.

“(Racing on Saturday) is not so easy, because I trained really hard yesterday,” said Sven Nys, perhaps the rider feeling the most pressure to produce a big result tomorrow. “We have one day less recovery now, so we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens with the weather tomorrow, but it’s one day that we don’t have to be nervous anymore, so there’s also something positive.”

Nys’ Belgian teammates echoed his sentiments, saying the change of schedule was an annoyance, but not really a source of concern.

“It’s no problem; I raced last week on Saturday, and with a week between two races, it’s no problem,” said the defending world champion, Niels Albert. “It’s a little bit different, because normally two days before the race I would usually not do very much, maybe an hour or an hour and a half. But I did yesterday some training — not very hard, but a little bit — and normally it would have been my rest day.”

Albert, in fact, said despite the hiccups in his training plan caused by the last minute change, he felt good about his chances in Saturday’s marquee event.

“I’m very relaxed at the moment. It’s a nice course, a little bit muddy, a little bit heavy and has some sand. I think the best rider in the best shape will win this race, so hopefully that’s me. But maybe it could be Sven or Kevin, so we will see.”

And, indeed, those three — Nys, Albert, and Kevin Pauwels — all are top favorites for spots on the podium. For Pauwels, who has never worn a major championship jersey at the elite level, a win in the United States would be a major boost. For Albert, it would be a feather in a cap that already sports two world championships and a Belgian title.

For Nys, however, a perennial Belgian champion who has won at worlds only once, the quest for a second rainbow jersey has taken on almost Melvillean proportions. After years of near misses, Nys declared his worlds aspirations finished after a hugely disappointing seventh place finish in Koksijde, Belgium, last year. But, recognizing his role as elder statesman for the sport, he reconsidered and will be among those in the first row on the starting line tomorrow. Nonetheless, he deflected the suggestion that the expectations of his massive Belgian fan base had become burdensome.

“I don’t feel any extra pressure,” Nys told VeloNews. “For me, my career is complete; I’m really happy with everything I have won. Of course, one jersey more is really nice to have, but it’s not making me nervous.”

And, he was quick to add, he was pleased to have made the trip to the United States, regardless of the outcome of the race, acknowledging that the event was an important step in building the global appeal of what has long been considered a fringe sport outside of Belgium.

“I’m glad,” he said, “because I had a fantastic week over here. All the people are really excited. I went to the basketball, and I saw how they live here, that they know who I am. It’s really nice to be here. The first guy who wins the world championships in the U.S., that’s also really special. And to be able to promote my sport over here is good.”

Editor’s note: Dan Seaton has been literally crawling through the Belgian mud covering European cyclocross since 2008. Each week this season he’ll look ahead to the weekend’s races and answer your questions about ’cross on the other side of the Atlantic. Got a question for your favorite Euro star? Want to know the inside story about the legendary Flemish fields? Send your questions to crossland@competitorgroup.com. Emails to this address were being bounced earlier this fall, so if you tried to email and didn’t hear back, please do try again.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (VN) — After 18 weeks of previewing races, we’ve finally arrived at one that needs no introduction — the UCI Elite Cyclocross World Championships, anticipated by fans since it was first announced in 2010 that the sport’s biggest race would be coming to the United States.

Neither is there much need to review the major contenders, as my colleagues at VeloNews have already done a fantastic job of introducing the international and domestic favorites.

So let’s get right to the questions. First, let’s get to the bottom of a minor mystery.

Dear Dan,

Why did Marianne Vos and Sanne Van Paassen choose to do their worlds preparation in a tiny city in Texas and not in Louisville?

—Kirk in Colorado

Kirk,

I was also surprised when Vos and Van Paassen told me that they were headed to Cleveland to prepare for worlds. I was especially surprised that they would pick a rather chilly city famous for its regular lake-effect snowstorms for their pre-worlds training. Then I realized they were talking about a small Texas town about 50 miles northeast of Houston rather than the industrial Ohio city on the shores of Lake Erie.

Velo editor-in-chief Neal Rogers interviewed the defending world champion Vos just a few days ago and asked her this very question. Vos told him Cleveland provided a good balance of weather and proximity to Louisville.

“I wanted to go for a pre-worlds training camp in the U.S., but that’s not so easy to do because of the weather, so we wanted to go in the south, but also in the same time zone, and Texas is only one hour [time zone] different from Louisville,” Vos said. “So we flew to Houston, there’s a good training area here, it’s not too hilly, not too warm, it’s nice to prepare for worlds.”

He also had a chance to ask Vos about her impressions of her time in the Lone Star State.

“Every day, we think ‘whoa, what is happening here?’ Everything is big here — cars, roads, plates of food,” she said. “There are certainly some other cultures we’ve seen this week, the living, the standards, it’s quite interesting. It’s not where we want to spend our whole lives, but it’s been interesting.”

So, with that mystery “solved,” I thought I’d address a very thoughtful message that I got from a reader in response to my look at who can beat the Belgians earlier this week. In the column I asked whether, if the Belgians continue to dominate cyclocross as they have for the past 15 years, the sport could really justify its aspirations to Olympic recognition.

Dear Dan,

Just read your article about the Belgians. The questions about the extent to which ’cross can become an international sport and whether it should be included in the Olympics, framed in terms of whether the Belgians sweep everything again seems to completely forget the women’s cross scene. It’s pretty obvious that women’s ’cross is not dominated by Belgium. If you’re going to address the big questions about the sport and how Belgian it is you need to include something about the women.

—John in Chicago

Dear John,

Indeed, I should not have written that piece without acknowledging the much more international contests on the women’s side of the sport. Among the serious contenders for spots in the top five in the women’s race are American, Swiss, Dutch, Czech, French, British, Belgian and Italian riders. There’s no question that you are right about women’s racing.

But here’s the bad news: Even though women’s racing has exploded in popularity in North America, and even though it’s arguably the women who have delivered the most exciting racing of the season, far too often women’s cyclocross is considered second-class racing abroad. In Europe in particular, women receive just a tiny fraction of the developmental and professional support that the men get. Often women do not receive start money as the men do and are expected to race at terrible times, starting on deserted courses as early as 10 a.m. More than one European national team will race worlds without a full women’s squad, leaving plentiful talent at home.

But there’s good news as well. European champion Helen Wyman’s op-ed on our site earlier this month, calling for the UCI to mandate that national teams bring their top three riders to worlds (as the men’s teams already must), seems to have sparked a strong response, including an online petition.

Women’s cyclocross is leading the way in the United States, with more and more races offering equal prize money, and some serious depth in women’s fields. Men generally travel to Europe for the opportunity to take part in the world’s most competitive races; women, on the other hand, often come to the USA for the same experience.

All this growth has caught the attention of the sport’s leaders. As I wrote a few months ago, even Sven Nys has spoken out on behalf of women’s racing.

So thanks, John, for the note and the reminder that, amid all the speculation about how many men the Belgians can pack into the top 10 on Sunday, when it comes to international appeal, at least one half of the sport has already got it figured out.

Editor’s note: This story on up-and-coming American cyclocross racer Logan Owen first appeared in the March issue of Velo magazine.

It’s only after the final run-up that he can start to believe it’s going to happen. After trading attacks with five of the best junior racers in the world for more than 40 minutes, in a tough tactical contest played out on the tarmac and sandy slopes of Belgium’s Zolder Formula One track, the race suddenly snaps into focus and Logan Owen makes the move that checkmates his three remaining opponents and ensures him a spot on the podium.

Leading out of a short but steep climb toward the course’s highest elevation, Belgian Nicolas Cleppe remounts his bike a moment too soon. Perhaps he’s in the wrong gear, or perhaps his tire slips in the sloping, sandy soil. Whatever the reason, Cleppe falters for a fraction of a second and Owen simply runs past him and away from the competition. Not even a minute later, he’s on the track, blowing kisses as he rolls over the line and into second place, one of the best World Cup finishes ever by an American male at any level.

At 17, this kid — despite all his poise and success, there’s no hiding his youth — from Bremerton, Washington, an hour’s ferry from Seattle, may become the first American to earn a gold medal at the world cyclocross championships since Matt Kelly stunned the world by winning the junior race in 1999.

The differences between Kelly’s race in Poprad, Slovakia, and the race Owen will ride in Louisville are considerable. For one, Kelly’s main competition was Belgian Sven Vanthourenhout, a rider who has gone on to a successful, but relatively undistinguished, professional career. To wear the rainbow stripes, Owen will have to defeat one of the sport’s true rising stars, the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel, a defending junior world champion and son of former ’cross world champion Adrie van der Poel. As a rival, he is formidable; in Zolder he rolled over the line nearly two minutes ahead of Owen, riding a pace that would have put him ahead of both Niels Albert and Sven Nys after six laps of that afternoon’s elite race.

In his favor, however, Owen has a long list of his own accomplishments. During the 2011 Kerstperiode in Belgium, he never finished worse than eighth, an impressive result on its own. In 2012 he improved on that, finishing second or better during his four-race Belgian tour with the EuroCrossCamp, including a win on one of the most demanding courses in cyclocross at Namur. He has not finished outside of the top-five in five World Cup races this season. He earned an eighth national title in Madison, Wisconsin, in January.

“Logan is one of the most talented American riders I’ve worked with in international cyclocross,” says Geoff Proctor, director of the EuroCrossCamp and a U.S. national team coach. “He has met several benchmarks by which I measure talent, both in cyclocross and on the road. He has seized opportunities and delivered. Chapeau to him.”

Owen’s biggest gift, says Proctor, one that might make the difference for him in Louisville, is that he simply cannot be discouraged. He is a tenacious racer, and, as he showed in Zolder, an excellent tactician.

Owen found his way to cyclocross from BMX, winning his first national title in the 10-12 age group in 2004 — before he had turned 10. The path from BMX to cyclocross has been well trod, especially in Europe; former world champions Sven Nys and Zdenek Stybar both walked it. BMX helped Owen develop some of those critical skills and character traits, and set him up with what has become a nearly lifelong relationship with Redline, makers of both BMX and cyclocross bikes.

Owen eventually decided to focus exclusively on a cyclocross career, and last season made his first trip to race in Europe. The experience was transformative.

“I was super excited last year, but I had no idea what it was going to be like,” he told Velo during his most recent trip to Europe. “It was eye opening. I was getting top-10s, but I wasn’t really doing as well as I had in the U.S., where I was winning or battling for first. It felt like I was getting killed. I realized that I needed to step up my game, and it helped me focus. I’ve lost 10 pounds since last year at this time; I’m really focusing down on my eating and my training, and it’s starting to come together. I’m glad I’m starting to reap some rewards for all the hard work I’ve been putting in.”

Owen’s newfound focus has indeed paid off, and the evidence collected in the past few months underscores his potential to continue to grow. He believes he can unseat the favorite, van der Poel, in Louisville, but, imbued with a strong sense of sportsmanship, he has said more than once that he hopes the defending champion will be at his best for the race.

“I think going into Louisville, with the jet lag, me knowing the course, I think I definitely have a home-field advantage,” he told Velo. “I mean, I want [van der Poel] to show up and be the best he can, so if I beat him I know that I beat him at his best, and it’s not just because he had some issue. I just want it to really show who is the best in the world. Hopefully I can challenge him and have a really good race, but a podium should be in reach, I just have to stay focused and keep my head straight at worlds and not get too flustered just because it’s the world championships. As long as I have a good start, I think I can do something great.”

PHILADELPHIA (VN) — When, a year ago at the cyclocross world championships in Koksijde, Belgium, the host country’s elite men’s national team posted an unprecedented sweep of the top seven spots, cyclocross fans began to wonder if the Belgians, long a force in the sport, had become truly invincible. Is there anyone capable of knocking them back a year later when the men roll off on Sunday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky?

The sport’s two biggest non-Belgian men’s stars, world champions Lars Boom (Netherlands) and Zdenek Stybar (Czech Republic), both had recently opted to walk away from serious participation in ’cross in favor of more lucrative careers on the road, and the worlds sweep came on top of Belgian wins in the final standings of all three of the world’s biggest cyclocross series — the GVA Trofee, Superprestige, and World Cup.

Belgian dominance in cyclocross is nothing new, of course. Since 1998, when the country’s ’cross renaissance began, almost three-quarters of all men’s world championship podium places belong to Belgians. And, until a week ago, Belgian men had not failed to earn at least one podium spot in every World Cup race held for more than a decade.

But last Sunday’s snowy race in Hoogerheide, Netherlands, went to Martin Bina (Czech Republic), Lars van der Haar (Netherlands) and Simon Zahner (Switzerland). The three may have profited from their skills in unusual conditions and a highly tactical race between Belgian World Cup leader Niels Albert and number two Kevin Pauwels, both of whom were looking to limit risk in pursuit of the overall World Cup title, but last week’s result proved that, on the right day, it is possible to beat the Belgians.

Still Belgium is coming into Sunday’s worlds in Louisville with a seven-man squad that includes both defending champion Albert and Sven Nys, whose palmarès include some 250 wins, including eight Belgian titles and a world championship. The light blue-clad team head to the worlds with six men in the top 10 of the UCI cyclocross rankings, and, as a result, Belgium remains the hands down favorite in the elite men’s race. So who, if anyone, might be able to break the Belgian stranglehold on world class cyclocross in Louisville on Sunday?

Young Dutchman

The top contender has to be two-time U23 world champion and newly-crowned Dutch elite champion Lars van der Haar, who will race among the elites at the worlds for the first time this year. Van der Haar excels in fast, tactical races, but showed in Hoogerheide that he is capable of performing on a highly technical track as well.

He is the only non-Belgian ranked among the top five in the world, and, with a CrossVegas victory in 2011, is one of only a few foreigners headed to Louisville to have won a race in the United States before. Reigning champion Albert went so far as to tip him as the top favorite for the race in an interview a few months ago.

Though van der Haar said last week that he wasn’t sure if he could carry his recent streak of good form all the way to the championship race, he’ll be the man to watch if the weather yields a fast, hard track.

Repping the birthplace of ’cross

Second on the list would be the only other non-Belgian in the top nine in the world, French champion Francis Mourey. Mourey, 33, started his season slow and carefully targeted races with maximum potential for payoff for his UCI ranking, skipping a number of major Belgian races in favor of better odds at home in France. Nonetheless, the skillful French rider has three finishes inside the top four in World Cup competition, including a third place finish in Koksijde, Belgium, in November. And, with a CrossVegas win of his own — one of several top results during a U.S. tour in 2010 — Mourey also is not new to the rigors of travel from Europe to the U.S.

With a decade more experience in the elite ranks than van der Haar, Mourey is the more rounded rider of the two. He has posted good results in races held in sand, heavy mud, steep hills, and fast, hard-packed tracks this year. So whatever the weather brings in Louisville, Mourey is likely to be a factor.

The others

Other riders to watch include Czech Radomir Simunek, Dutchman Thijs Van Amerongen, and Swiss riders Simon Zahner and Julien Taramarcaz.

Of the four, Simunek appears to be the best positioned for a good result at Eva Bandman Park on Sunday. In addition to being the first finisher behind the Belgians at last year’s world championships, he has quietly been gobbling up World Cup top 10s all season. With countryman Stybar focused on the spring classics, he will also be the Czechs’ best chance for a top result.

Van Amerongen, Zahner, and Taramarcaz, meanwhile, have each been consistently racing to top-10 results in Europe all season, and are highly capable of riding onto the podium this weekend.

The Americans

And what of the Americans? Don’t count them out. Home-field advantage has boosted more than one rider to good results in world championship races in recent years. Martin Bina pulled off a surprising fourth-place finish in his home country, the Czech Republic, in 2010 — the same year his countryman Stybar won his first elite world title. In 2011, Philipp Walsleben had his best result ever with a fifth place at worlds in Sankt Wendel, Germany, his home country. And, of course, there is the stunning Belgian result in Koksijde last year. Both motivation and familiarity with the Louisville course could lift American racers to better than expected results.

The most heralded contender on the team is likely Jeremy Powers, whose 11th-place world ranking will earn him a good position in the starting grid.

Coming off a block of heavy training and illness, Powers looked off his game at the national championships two weeks ago. He has been training in Louisville since then, however, and finished third, behind Belgians Albert and Wietse Bosmans, in Cincinnati on Saturday. Powers’ biggest strength is his prowess on fast, flowy courses, and good weather could produce a race that suits him well.

National champion Jonathan Page, meanwhile, has experienced something of a rebirth since late December after an otherwise lackluster season.

Page is the most accomplished American man at elite cyclocross worlds. Two other American team members — Tim Johnson and Danny Summerhill — earned silver medals in the U23 and junior ranks, respectively, at the worlds, but Page, with silver in Hooglede-Gits, Belgium, in 2007, earned the sole American medal by an elite man at worlds.

Page, who told VeloNews last week that he was riding in subzero weather in New Hampshire in preparation for the race on Sunday, is still searching for a title sponsor. His 2007 ride earned him a place on the Belgian Subweb team, and a good ride in Louisville would likely go a long way in helping him earn another such prize. Though he is a good all-around rider, he is best on heavy, demanding courses, and undoubtedly is hoping for terrible weather in Louisville.

Whether the Americans — or any of the others — can really make a dent in Belgium’s iron grip on the sport next weekend is, perhaps, the biggest unanswered question ahead of worlds. It is also a question with lasting implications for the sport itself. In awarding worlds to the United States, the UCI sent a clear message about its intentions for really internationalizing a sport that has long been dominated by just a handful of European countries.

If the Belgians once again walk away with everything, can cyclocross justify its aspirations to Olympic status and worldwide growth? The answer — the beginning of it, at any rate — is just six days away.

BRUSSELS (VN) — At the beginning of December, Belgium-based American cyclocrosser Jonathan Page was in the middle of a season to forget. His fourth elite national title and a burst of late-season form have erased those memories and will see him arrive to Louisville, Kentucky, next week as a top U.S. favorite for the UCI Elite Cyclocross World Championships.

Racing without a title sponsor, Page spent nearly six weeks fighting a respiratory infection that hit just as the racing in Belgium reached a climax. But he started showing good form in a heavy race in Essen, Belgium, where he finished 12th, and followed that up by earning an automatic berth on the U.S. world championships team with a 15th place at the World Cup stop in Namur two days before Christmas.

In the end, Page’s return came just at the right moment. He pulled down two top-10 finishes during Belgium’s intense Kerstperiode before dominating the U.S. national championship in Verona, Wisconsin, with a solo win in slick, sub-freezing conditions.

VeloNews caught up with Page on the phone from his mother’s house in Tilton, New Hampshire, where he is spending some quiet time with his family and training for a world championship race that is now barely more than a week away.

VeloNews: Tell me about winning the national title. What happened after you won?
Jonathan Page: I started trying to get warm.

VN: I believe it. It was frigid a day.
JP: Seriously, first I tried to call Cori [Page’s wife]. Then I figured out that all 10 fingertips were frozen. They’re still numb. But it was really nice. It was the best; it was the most satisfying win of all my national titles.

VN: Your family traveled from your home in Belgium to the United States and arrived at just about the same time you were wrapping up the race on Sunday, didn’t they? When did you get to see them again?
JP: We met up in Boston early on Monday morning, like one in the morning. We drove up to my mom’s house. She wasn’t even here; she was still in Madison! That was cool! The kids made all these signs for me. They went to my brother’s house in Boston and worked really hard. They were awake until midnight, so the day Cori and the kids left Belgium, they got up at midnight Boston time, and the kids were so excited they stayed up for 24 hours straight. But then Cori put them in the car to pick me up and they fell asleep in seconds. They had a whole plan to get out of the van and scream and yell, they had noisemakers and stuff, but they didn’t get to use them.

VN: And now that you’re settled in New Hampshire, how is your preparation for worlds going?
JP: Everything is going really well, except for falling off of my bike on the snowmobile trails. There’s some hidden ice underneath, and once I went over the handlebars. So I’ve had to be a little careful. There’s not that much snow, and you can kind of keep warm in the woods, and it’s fun.

VN: With that kind of preparation, I imagine you’re hoping for a cold day at worlds?
JP: It was negative six degrees [Fahrenheit] as the high today, and I rode four hours and 20 minutes out on the road with cyclocross tires and dodging snowplows, out on my old stomping grounds. The kids went skiing instead. It’s going to be a high of negative three degrees tomorrow. It’s been so cold. I had to go down hills with my hands over my face. I had a facemask on, but my cheeks and my nose were still hanging out. If it’s really cold at worlds, I’m all set.

VN: What do the locals think of you out there on your bike in conditions like that?
JP: On my ride today I had people coming by me and slowing down and looking at me and going, “Are you all right?” And I was thinking the same thing myself, “What the hell am I doing?” I mean, I have a mission, but these people don’t know that. I got a lot of thumbs up.

VN: You guys hosted a party to celebrate your win. How was that?
JP: It was great. Quite a few people came, many more than we expected.

VN: Did it feel good to be surrounded by so many people who support you and wanted to congratulate you?
VN: That was the best part of the whole thing, kind of sharing the championship with them. Seeing the people from the beginning of my career who I hadn’t seen forever. [Legendary New England cycling announcer] Dick Ring even came. “Lord love a duck!” [Page imitates his trademarked catch phrase]

I think we knew half the people there and the other half were just fans who came from all over New England. So it was very nice. It was really fun to share and just have everyone be a part of the whole thing.

VN: Have you heard from any racers since nationals? Tim Johnson had some kind words about your win after the race.
JP: Tim and I actually went training in Chicago one day before nationals. That was the first time I ever rode with him without having a number on my back! It was fun. We were just kind of joking about how the whole idea of our rivalry came up, since we both think we’re just two normal people doing our jobs, which happens to be bike racing. It’s not very complicated; people just sort of make it complicated.

VN: I think you were the only rider in the top 10 at nationals who has kids. I thought that was kind of interesting. How you think having to be both a dad and a bike racer affects your career?
JP: It’s never just about me; it’s the whole family dynamic. It takes a lot to get it together. I think Cori doesn’t get enough credit for keeping the whole family going, to help me not have to think about a lot of things besides bike racing. But I also try to do my part by being a dad and not being uninvolved.

VN: Do you think fatherhood helps to keep you grounded through the season?
JP: It gives you great focus. People have said maybe I should be a little more like some of the other riders, be a little more social, more active on Twitter and Facebook. But I’ve got a wife and kids, and a good cyclist has to stay focused, and I still need to spend some time with my kids. And that’s on top of trying to work on sponsorship, spending a lot of time maintaining my bikes, because I’m a one-man show. I’m never going to be the cool guy, you know? I’m always going to be most interested in coming home to my kids and my wife, to be there to read my kids a bedtime story. It’s just how I was brought up, to have morals, values.

VN: You had support from your friends Jerry Chabot of ENGVT and Bob Downs from Planet Bike for nationals, but those were short-term deals and you still don’t have a title sponsor. Has the national championship helped with your sponsorship situation?
JP: Everybody thinks I’m all set, but I’m still looking. I’ll have a national champion’s jersey with only smaller sponsors. This all doesn’t just turn around in a week. I can understand that; it’s the beginning of the season for the road and most people made decisions for the first of January. I wish I could have done that, but I didn’t have the national title yet. There are some possibilities, but nothing concrete. It’s not as quick as we’d like it to be.

VN: What are your expectations for Louisville?
JP: I don’t really want to say. Talk’s cheap. I don’t want to say, “I’m going to get this place.” That’s bullshit. I’m just going to go ahead and look for a magical day and that’s it.

Editor’s note: Dan Seaton has been literally crawling through the Belgian mud covering European cyclocross since 2008. Each week this season he’ll look ahead to the weekend’s races and answer your questions about ’cross on the other side of the Atlantic. Got a question for your favorite Euro star? Want to know the inside story about the legendary Flemish fields? Send your questions to crossland@competitorgroup.com. Emails to this address were being bounced earlier this fall, so if you tried to email and didn’t hear back, please do try again.

BRUSSELS (VN) — For the first time since September there will be little action on the European cyclocross front this weekend, as all eyes turn to the United States and the build-up to cyclocross worlds next weekend. For the Europeans who haven’t made the jump across the Atlantic yet — or those left off their national team rosters — there are race options in France, Italy, and Spain. But it’s Cincinnati that will host the biggest event with its Kings International Cyclocross on Saturday.

With Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) on the startlist, the race will mark the first time American fans have seen the rainbow jersey of an elite world champion in the States since Erwin Vervecken made a short trip to race in Southampton, New York, in 2007. (Lars Van Der Haar was U23 world champion when he won CrossVegas in 2011, but, racing with the elites, he did not wear the rainbow jersey.)

Among the other riders scheduled to take the start in Ohio are the new American champion Jonathan Page, Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com teammates Tim Johnson and Ryan Trebon, Jeremy Powers (Rapha-Focus), Swiss riders Simon Zahner (EKZ Racing) and Julien Taramarcaz (BMC Racing), and Czech Radomir Simunek (Kwadro-Stannah). Headlining the women’s race will be Amy Dombroski (Telenet-Fidea), racing for the first time her home country after many months in Belgium, Czech champion Katerina Nash (Luna) and her American teammate Georgia Gould, Meredith Miller (Cal Giant-Specialized), Swiss champion Jasmin Achermann (Rapha) and European Champion Helen Wyman (Kona).

In any other year, a race with that much international talent on display would be the biggest event of the year in the U.S., but it’s just a warm-up race for the main event, the world championships, now barely more than a week away. Things are about to get very exciting, so stay tuned.

Now let’s turn to one of your questions. It’s a tough one.

On doping in cyclocross

Dear Dan,
Doping in road cycling has been major news lately, but what about cyclocross? Is doping an issue there too?
—Alan in Kansas

Alan,
I knew that with so much news about the Armstrong case emerging in the past few weeks it was only a matter of time until this question came up. It’s a fair one, because, indeed, cyclocross has had its own checkered history, and questions about doping persist today as well.

The most recent case is that of Belgian Tom Meeusen (Telenet) who lost his place on the Belgian National Team for the final two rounds of the World Cup and next Sunday’s championship race because of his involvement in a police investigation into doping practices in Belgium. Meeusen’s role in the investigation is apparently only as a witness, rather than as the object of suspicion, but the Belgian federation’s rules prohibit anyone involved in such an investigation from racing for the national team. Meeusen has spoken out forcefully against doping and has stridently defended his reputation as a clean rider, but until he is formally cleared by prosecutors, Meeusen will remain restricted from racing in national team colors.

Meeusen’s troubles follow close on the heels of his teammate Bart Wellens, who himself was the subject of an investigation following a life-threatening illness the night before the Belgian national championship race last season. Wellens was cleared after a police investigation concluded that his symptoms, which included high fever and kidney failure, were the result of a blood infection that originated in an infected tooth. He returned to racing this year after making, apparently, a full recovery from his illness.

Meeusen and Wellens may very well turn out to have been the subjects of unfair suspicion, collateral damage from a toxic culture where once-rampant cheating has left no one and no result safe from skepticism. But if that’s true, cyclocrossers have done plenty to earn that suspicion as well.

The most high profile recent case was that of the Pawel and Kacper Szczepaniak, Polish brothers who finished one-two in the 2010 world championships in Tabor, Czech Republic. Each brother had a positive control for the banned blood booster EPO following a somewhat surprising U23 race.

Pawel later told the Belgian paper Het Laatste Nieuws that they believed they were using vitamins, not EPO, and that their motivation for cycling success stemmed from a desire to help their family to escape poverty. But the excuses apparently didn’t resonate with fans or the UCI, and both are now serving long suspensions — eight and four years, respectively — as the 2010 infraction was not the first entanglement with doping for either of them.

Before that, Belgian Ben Berden, now a star on the U.S. cyclocross circuit, served a 15-month suspension for testing positive for EPO after finishing second in a GVA Trofee race in Essen, Belgium, in 2005. Berden admitted to doping, telling the Belgian press that before his positive control he had been suffering from fatigue.

“At that moment, I had a hematocrit of 38,” he said in a 2005 press conference. “With a tough period coming up, I did not want to disappoint the sponsors and fans. I regret my actions and will not be asking for a counter-analysis.”

Berden had appeared to be poised for cyclocross greatness before his infraction put the brakes on his career, racing to World Cup and national championship podiums in the 2004-05 season that marked his downfall, but he has never replicated the success he had prior to his ban. He continues to speak out against doping and the culture that drives racers to use banned substances.

The list goes on. One of the most significant doping cases in the history of the sport was that of former world champion and current Sunweb-Napoleon Games team manager Mario De Clercq, who received a four-year ban that effectively ended his career in 2005. De Clercq was swept up in what eventually became known as the Landuyt affair, for José Landuyt, a Belgian veterinarian who led a massive doping ring. De Clercq was one of a number of high profile riders identified during the course of an investigation that began in 2003, just a year after De Clercq won his third world title.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but it does put the sport’s past and present in some context. Are there successful athletes racing clean? I’m certain there are. Are there riders who continue to dope? I want to say no, that we’re in a new world where riders truly want clean and fair races and doping is harder to get away with anyway. But I’m not naive. Athletes, coaches, and journalists said the same about Lance Armstrong, the same in 2010 before the Szczepaniaks, the same in 2005 when both Berden and De Clercq went down. The fact is that as long as the rewards appear to outweigh the risks, athletes will inevitably continue to seek whatever competitive edge they can get.

Still, a new day does seem to be dawning for road cycling after a long period of darkness. I sincerely hope we can say the same about cyclocross as well.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (VN) — The 2012-13 World Cup of cyclocross wrapped up with a snowy finale on Sunday in Hoogerheide, Netherlands, that offered few surprises — as long as one looked only at the final classification, that is.

Indeed, the race for one of cyclocross’ biggest prizes, the World Cup title, was almost a foregone conclusion. American Katie Compton (Trek Cyclocross Collective), who wrapped up the women’s overall two weeks ago in Rome, opted not to return to Europe for the final race, a trip that would have offered few rewards and plenty of risk.

In Compton’s absence, Marianne Vos (Rabobank) rode to an uncontested victory, her third straight in the World Cup. Vos opted to sit out the first half of the cyclocross season to recover from efforts on the road that netted her Olympic gold and the world championship. She rode only four of the series’ eight rounds and was never a factor in the overall.

It was Sanne Van Paassen (Rabobank) who was the biggest threat to upset the podium, but Van Paassen too missed out on the chance to challenge Compton after sitting out the sixth round due to illness. Instead, her second-place finish on Sunday earned her second in the overall, ahead of British champion Nikki Harris (Telenet-Fidea).

The men’s race, if not quite decided beforehand, was never really in doubt, either. Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) spent the day marking Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Napoleon Games), who trailed by 16 points coming into Sunday’s race.

Albert took no risks on his way to fifth place, which was enough to ensure his overall victory — and the 30,000-euro check that comes with it. (Compton will receive 12,000 euros.)

Pauwels’ eighth-place finish was sufficient to hold off Sven Nys (Crelan-Euphony) for second best overall, meaning that the race did nothing to change the top three in the final standings.

Not everything followed the script, however. And what didn’t go according to plan was stunning.

For the first time in more than a decade an elite men’s World Cup race ended without a Belgian on the podium. Instead it was Czech Martin Bina (CEZ Group), Dutch Lars Van Der Haar (Rabobank), and Swiss Simon Zahner (EKZ Racing) who occupied the top spots on Sunday.

With the victory, Bina finally realized the potential he first demonstrated in winning the 2001 junior world championships. Though he showed promising form as an elite during the 2009-10 season, riding to fourth place at worlds in his home country, a torn meniscus in his left knee destroyed the subsequent seasons, and Bina faded to near-invisibility. Three surgeries finally restored his damaged knee and Bina has been quietly returning to form ever since.

First he dropped nearly 25 pounds of weight he gained while sidelined. Then he more or less ran the table at the Toi Toi Cup series in the Czech Republic. Though on Sunday he clearly capitalized on conditions that suited his strengths and the conservative riding of the three Belgians already established on the podium, he told VeloNews that he viewed his impressive result in Hoogerheide as much more than a fluke.

“I wouldn’t call this a coincidence,” said Bina. “Last year was the first time I really started to train properly after the injury, and so my performance has simply increased. I’m confident. This is where I want to be, and these are the kind of results I hope will continue.”

Likewise, third-place finisher Zahner said he too hoped he would be able to repeat his good results on Sunday, but he hesitated to rank himself among the best riders in the world, equal to Van Der Haar or the Belgians he defeated.

“One of the best in the world, I don’t know,” he told VeloNews. “It’s just one race. I wouldn’t talk of myself now like I’m a really big guy in all conditions. But if you look at this season, from the beginning of this season I had a starting position in the second row and I had many good starts.

“The Belgian TV guys say, ‘He has really good starts, but he’ll disappear from the front of the race by himself,’ because I crashed in Roubaix in the second lap. I crashed in Antwerp in the middle of the race. So I always know that my tactic has to be a good start and then keep it there as long as possible. This was the first time I didn’t crash.”

Zahner’s result comes during a season when Swiss riders have done much to restore their nation’s status as a serious cyclocross contender. Swiss men dominated the discipline in the late 1970s, and the country remained a force well into the 1980s. But no elite Swiss rider has reached the podium at the world championships since 1997, when Thomas Frischknecht finished second in Munich, Germany.

In addition to Zahner’s convincing ride on Sunday, Swiss champion Julien Taramarcaz (BMC) has been near the front of major races all season, finishing fourth in a World Cup race in Roubaix, France. Countrywoman Jasmin Achermann (Rapha-Focus) finished seventh in the World Cup classification, with results in the series that included six top-10 finishes, one of which landed her on the podium.

In a larger sense, however, the unusual results on Sunday may herald the beginning of a new era of competition, one not so completely controlled by Belgian riders. Though two big non-Belgian stars, Dutch Lars Boom (Blanco) and Czech Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) have more or less walked away from the sport in pursuit of more lucrative careers on the road, others, including Czechs, Dutch, Swiss, Americans, British, French and Italians, have all enjoyed recent success in major men’s or women’s races.

Moreover, even Belgian fans and promoters seem to have acknowledged that contests that end predictably, with one of three Belgian riders on top of the podium, have begun to grow stale. Concern for the growth of the sport internationally certainly played a part in the decision to award worlds this year to the United States. It has manifested in the advent of the Kwadro-Stannah squad as well.

The brainchild of Christoph and Philip Roodhooft, managers of Niels Albert’s BKCP-Powerplus team, the new team seeks to restore balance by providing a supportive framework in which international racers can grow.

Launched at the start of this year and led by another non-Belgian, the Dutch former world champion Adrie van der Poel, the team hosts Czech Radomir Simunek, who finished sixth on Sunday but was in close contention for the podium, and Pole Mariusz Gil. But the Roodhooft brothers hope the team — and with it the successes by international riders — will grow in the coming years.

In the short term, however, cyclocross will go international — albeit only briefly — without the Roodhofts’ help. As early as Monday European stars will begin their journeys to the United States ahead of the world championships in Louisville in two weeks’ time.

Marianne Vos and Sanne Van Paassen head to a training camp in Cleveland, Texas. Swiss riders Taramarcaz and Zahner leave for the States on Wednesday. Niels Albert plans nearly two weeks in Louisville, including an appearance at the Kings International Cyclocross in Cincinnati next weekend.

Get ready, American ’cross fans — your moment in the spotlight is about to begin.