This year’s wins for North American mountain biker of the year and international mountain biker of the year were both easy choices. That being said, the North American pick, Aaron Gwin, may come as a surprise, given that he races in a discipline not often covered on Singletrack.com. In 2011 he put on a show the likes of which a North American hasn’t had since 2001.

Jaroslav Kuhavy won our international pick, and answered the question: What’s left to accomplish when you’ve already won the World Cup cross country overall title?

Read the full article on Singletrack.com

Want to race here? You have to work your way up.

Life Time Fitness has announced the qualifying events for riders hoping to tackle the 2012 Leadville Trail 100.

Registration has officially opened for the Leadville Race Series qualifiers. Participants will have their names entered into the lottery draw for the LT100, or may automatically qualify based on performance at the qualifiers.

Each event will qualify 70-100 riders to race the 2012 LT100.

The LT100 lottery will close on January 31, 2012.

For more, see Singletrack.com.

Scott will make the official announcement Monday morning, but a video published online over the weekend by Scott Bicycles depicts Kabush talking about his move to the squad January 1. Kabush told VeloNews Sunday night following the Deschutes Brewery Cup in Bend that he was happy to have secured sponsorship after his Maxxis-Rocky Mountain team folded and planned to share the information overnight.

“There were a variety of options, probably four or five on the table, which was great,” Kabush said in the video. “I narrowed it down to things that made sense and fit with my goals and in the end, 3Rox-Scott has been the best fit and is something I’m pretty excited about.”

According to Kabush, the team made a “long-term commitment” that will carry him through the Olympics, where he hopes to ride for Canada, and the World Cup beyond that. Kabush will continue working with long-time tire supplier Maxxis.

“It really sparked my career when I switched to Maxxis in 2004,” he said. “They’re still going to be a big supporter of me and I’m grateful for their support.”

Joining Kabush at Scott will be Derek Zandstra, Cam Jette, Tyson Wagler, Marc-Antoine Nadon, Amanda Sin, Mikaela Kofman and Laura Bietola.

Kabush finished third in Sunday’s Exergy U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross finale, securing second overall in the series.

Scott Bicycles: Welcome to the Team Geoff Kabush from Route 2 Productions on Vimeo.

Thieves took eight bikes that are used in SRAM’s 2X10 mountain bike demo program. In an act particularly despicable to this editor, the criminals also stole the toolbox of one of SRAM’s mechanics.

Please be on the lookout for the following bikes:

• Ibis Mojo SL, small, white, X0 components
• Ibis Mojo SL, large, carbon, X0 components
• Intense Tracer 29, large, silver, X7 components
• Intense Tracer 29, medium, green, X0 components
• Niner EMD Hardtail, medium, silver, X0 components
• Specialized Enduro, large, brown, X0 components
• Specialized Stumpy 29 Hardtail, large, white/red, X0 components
• Turner Flux , small, red, XX components

Also keep your eyes peeled for a Platt 8-inch toolbox with wing pallets and cork lined dividers in bottom. There are no stickers on the outside.

If you see any of these bikes or the toolbox, please contact the local authorities immediately. Follow any updates on Twitter @SRAMNRS.

Full coverage on Singletrack.com

Armstrong was a surprise entrant. Photo: Jason Sumner

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. (ST) — Lance Armstrong won Sunday’s 60-mile Alpine Odyssey race here, beating Greg Krause of Littleton, Colorado by three seconds.

Specialized’s Rebecca Rusch won the women’s race by about three minutes ahead of Jennifer Smith. Rusch was fourth overall.

Please check Singletrack.com later Sunday for a race report, videos and a photo gallery. Complete results

Leipheimer in Leadville last year

Team RadioShack’s Levi Leipheimer, winner of the 2010 Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race in his first attempt, is bypassing the opportunity to defend his title in order to compete at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado.

Leipheimer took the LT100 crown in record time last year and went on to win the overall at the Tour of Utah the following weekend while riding without the support of a team.

However the addition to the calendar of the inaugural USA Pro Cycling Challenge, a UCI 2.1 stage race held in Colorado from August 22-28, pushed the dates of the Utah race forward a week to August 9-14, creating a conflict with the LT100, held August 13.

Leipheimer told Singletrack.com he’s not sure if he’ll ever do Leadville again.

“I don’t know. It might be best to do it once, have the record, and just leave it at that,” he said. “It’s a very epic race, and I’m glad I did it, but at the same time it was pretty damn hard. I’m not sure I ever want to go and suffer like that again.”

Full story on Singletrack.com

RockyMounts owner Bobby Noyes has helped spearhead the Valmont project from the beginning. He was saluted with a custom frame, a big round of applause, and - most importantly - a sweet bike park that is now reality.

Bobby Noyes began promoting the idea of a bike park in Boulder in 1996. On June 11, 2011, Noyes stood on stage at the brand new, 40-acre Valmont Bike Park with a big grin. Behind him, riders of all ages rode everything from massive slopestyle jumps to pump tracks to cross-country singletrack.

“The coolest thing about the park is that it’s free and open to the public,” said Noyes, owner of RockyMounts rack company. “There’s stuff for kids; there’s stuff for people who want to be in the X Games. We’ve got it all. Come out and enjoy.”

Work began in earnest on Valmont Bike Park in late 2009, but the project really began after the City of Boulder acquired 132 acres on the northeast end of town and asked for public input as to how it should be used. City council finally approved the idea of a bike park in 1998, but the money wasn’t there to make it happen.

How much money does it take to build a world-class bike park? In Boulder, about $3 million.

For the Valmont Bike Park, the bike-specific portion of the undertaking ran $1.2 million, said project manager Mike Eubank.

“The city paid for a little more than half of this, and private donations and fundraising paid for the rest,” Eubank.

The private fundraising consisted of everything from $100 donations up to corporate sponsors like Pearl Izumi chipping in $30,000 to Great Outdoors Colorado that contributed $245,000.

Then, the city paid for the $2 million of related infrastructure, such as parking, sidewalks, and the connections to other city facilities such as bike paths and the neighboring dog park.

“What’s cool is that this park is a multi-discipline facility that’s free, accessible to all levels of riders and not in the middle of nowhere,” Eubank said. “We have taken it to a degree that no other city has. We are really lucky to have IMBA and Bikes Belong here in our community to help facilitate this great project.”

Singletrack.com asked riders to name their favorite part of the park. The answers were simple, but enthusiastic. “The jumps.” “It’s free.” “Big air.” “Community.”

Learn more about Valmont Bike Park here.

Compton was sitting fourth in the seven-lap race and preparing to move up when she felt what she called “a sharp, stabbing pain.”

“It’s that unmistakable feel of a sting, but when you’re in the moment, you typically shake off those types of things, as simply being part of racing,” Compton said. “But then things started to change pretty quickly and before I knew it, my race was over, and I had much bigger concerns.”

Fortunately, a nearby spectator on the course had an EpiPen — used to inject epinephrine to counteract anaphylaxis — and helped inject Compton as her condition worsened.

A few hours later a stabilized, and fully recovered Compton was thankful for her encounter with the unidentified “good Samaritan” and said she would start carrying an EpiPen, as would her husband and team managers.

“Some things you just can’t predict, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared nonetheless,” she said.

Emily Batty scores big at Sea Otter

Emily Batty, the 2010 Canadian U23 cross-country champion, is racing her first season for Subaru-Trek and delivered the biggest win of the year for the team as well as the biggest win of her career at the Sea Otter Classic on Saturday.

Todd Wells, meanwhile, notched his first victory at the spring celebration of cycling in more than a decade of racing at the California event.

For more on the cross-country racing and full Sea Otter tech and photos, go to singletrack.com

Van Houts, a teammate of world XC champ Jose Hermida on the top-ranked Multivan-Merida squad, was able to prove that the clenbuterol came from contaminated meat he ate while in Mexico last December.

Van Houts is immediately cleared to resume competition, according to reports in the Dutch sports daily Telegraaf.

More on Singletrack.com.

Bishop shows he can rail the shorter races, too.

After focusing much of his efforts on endurance events the last two seasons, Jeremiah Bishop won out over a field of top North American riders at the first national cross-country race of the season.

On the women’s side of things, Georgia Gould dominated the USA Cycling’s Pro XCT #1 event at Bonelli Park in Southern California over the weekend. Read the race round-up and view galleries on Singletrack.com.

The right shifter is integrated with the brake lever.

What happens when a retired world and Olympic champion’s Di2 time trial road bike starts to collect dust?

Well in the case of Kristin Armstrong (recently un-retired), her husband Joe Savola decided to appropriate the components and with the help of Jason Bauer, a local bike shop pro mechanic; James Saculles, a mechanical engineer; and Savola’s partner in the AceCo Sport Group (maker of the K-Edge) Eric Jensen, the Ki2 mountain bike kit was born.

Full story and gallery on Singletrack.com.

Katie Compton finished fourth at the Val di Sole, Italy World Cup last season.

What makes Katie Compton’s seven consecutive national cyclocross championships so impressive and her pioneering American success on the European ‘cross circuit even more meaningful is that she’s done it largely as a privateer.

Operating on the same bare-bones program, “Team Compton” — made up of Compton and Mark Legg, her husband, mechanic, soigneur and training partner — won two mountain bike national titles in short-track cross-country in 2008 and 2010.

Now, however, Compton may have found the extra push needed to reach two lofty goals: qualifying for the 2012 U.S. Olympic mountain bike team and finally standing atop the podium at the cyclocross worlds after winning silver twice and bronze once. After some 16 years’ racing, the 32 year old has signed on with a full-on, international sponsor — Rabobank-Giant Off-Road Team.

“As much as I liked being independent for a few years, I’m ready to move onto a team that has the infrastructure to support me on both the ‘cross and mountain bike,” Compton said.

Hailing from Wilmington, Delaware, but now a long-time resident of Colorado Springs, Compton won her seventh-consecutive U.S. cyclocross title in 2010 and added a fistful of wins to her list of UCI cyclocross podiums this past season. She started riding track and fat tires as a junior, then began racing on the track in college. Next came mountain biking as a member of the Trek/VW East Coast team.

While a coach at Carmichael Training Systems, Compton started racing again as the sighted pilot with Karissa Whitsell on a tandem Paralympic cycling team. The pair won multiple world and national paralympic championships as well as medals at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens on the road and track.

But it was in 2004 that Compton made her true debut on the American cycling scene by winning the first of her string of U.S. cyclocross national championships and then finding success on the world stage in 2007.

We caught up with Compton to get her thoughts on her new team and how she plans to meld mountain bike racing with cyclocross.

Q. To one degree or another, you’ve been a privateer for most of your career. How do you see the partnership with Rabobank-Giant Off-Road helping in reaching your goals?

A. They have a great program, great support and I’m just really excited to be a part of it now. I think this program has what I need to get me to that next level and win more races. It’s also a big stress relief to not have to worry about paying the bills anymore. I can focus solely on training, resting and racing now.

Q. One of your stated goals is qualifying for the mountain bike cross-country at the 2012 Olympics. What is your plan/schedule for 2011 as far as World Cup and domestic XC and then the lead-up to London in 2012?

A. For this year I’m going to do the full mountain bike World Cup schedule and will race ‘cross again in the fall. Next year is the same plan, I just need to get the right results in order to reach that goal. I plan to do everything in my power to make that happen and the team is 100 percent in support of that.

Q. In order to qualify for the U.S. Olympic MTB team, one has to rack up UCI points and top-10, or better, results internationally and domestically. How does that commitment fit in with your continuing success in cyclocross — especially with the Olympics looming?

A. I think training and racing well is a good build up for my ‘cross season. I’ll have a little more flexibility for ‘cross so I can set up my race schedule to come into worlds feeling strong and racing well like I did this year. I love riding and racing my bike and staying fit, so as long as I have a little down time in between seasons I’m good to go.

Olympics is the main goal, so I’ll do what I need to in order to qualify — that is first and foremost on the list. I think preparation for that will bring me into ‘cross season riding well.

Q. Other than you and Katerina Nash there aren’t too many other women who are consistently legit podium contenders on the both the World Cup cross-country and cyclocross scenes. With the demands being great for both, is it possible to excel at both in one year or does one have to be a priority over the other?

A. I think you can do well in both in the same year as long as you plan your seasons right. I think the two disciplines really complement each other. The mounain bike racing gives you the strength and aerobic fitness to be a good ‘cross rider and ‘cross gives you the speed to be a better mountain biker.
I like going hard over the winter and racing throughout the year, six months is too long to go without a race effort in the legs.

I know that doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for me as long as I have some down time between the two seasons. I just look forward to racing. As soon as I finished ‘cross worlds I was already thinking about what fun mountain bike rides I wanted to do.
‘Cross and mountain bike are such different scenes; both fun in different ways that it’s enough variety to keep from getting tired of either one.

Q. You’re the U.S. national champ in short-track XC, which, to a degree, requires the similar power and endurance needs of ‘cross racing. Olympic XC is a bit longer, with different requirements. How are you training differently or do you?

A. They are different efforts for sure, but the training is similar. I just make some adjustments depending on what racing I’m preparing for. It’s not like I only do 45-minute rides during ‘cross season since the races are so short. I still get in the endurance and the strength work. I just focus on shorter and harder efforts when ‘cross season comes around. And that’s kinda nice when it is really cold outside. I’d much rather go hard for a short time then do long training rides in cold wet weather.

Q. That said, the UCI has mandated shorter Olympic XC courses for 2011 and onward. How do you see that working out for your style of racing?

A. I think it’s great. It suits my racing style and it’ll be more exciting for TV and spectators.

Q. Going with Giant you have a variety of bikes to choose from — straight up hardtails, 26-inch dually XC, 29er dually. So what will it be — 29er or 26er?

A. I know, and I can’t wait to get them. I’ve got some fun bikes on order for training, but I plan to race the World Cups on the 26-inch hardtail. I have an aggressive riding style and I’m out of the saddle a lot so I like the response of a hardtail when I have to ride fast and the full suspension when I want to have fun and work on skills.

Not sure what I will race in the U.S. yet. It will probably depend on the courses and how I am feeling. As much as I like 29ers for Colorado trails, I’m still happier with smaller wheels on tight, technical terrain so I probably won’t be racing a 29er much.

Levi Leipheimer leads JHK up the Powerline Climb at the 2010 LT100. Photo by Dave McElwaine

A series of qualifying races will be used by the new owners of the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race in addition to the traditional race lottery.

In a partnership with AEG, owner of among other things the Amgen Tour of California, Life Time Fitness will use three qualifying races for the 2011 Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race. The unidentified events will be held in June and July in California, Colorado and the Northeast and guarantee entry into the LT 100, which sells out annually.

More on the qualifying races on Singletrack.com.

McQuaid at the GP Montreal in September

Editor’s note: This is part 2 of a three-part interview with Pat McQuaid, focusing on McQuaid’s five years as head of the UCI. Part 1 looked at the sport’s globalization, the new World Tour and the process used to choose ProTeams for 2011. Part 3 will be published next week and will, among other things, delve more deeply into how the UCI has dealt with the doping problem.

To the general media, Pat McQuaid is a lightning rod in world cycling. He’s the go-to guy whenever a controversial development, good or bad, hits the sport. But most of the work accomplished by the 61-year-old Irishman in his five years as president of the Union Cycliste Internationale goes unreported or under-reported.

That was the case last Friday when McQuaid was in Paris for the annual meeting of AIOCC, the international association of bike race organizers, representing the sport’s top 75 race promoters. Also in attendance was AIOCC president Christian Prudhomme, race director of the Tour de France, along with the organizers of cycling’s other grand tours, who for the better part of seven years have fought a much-publicized battle with the UCI over their rights to invite whatever teams they want to the Tour, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.

That battle officially came to a close on Friday when Prudhomme and his fellow big-race organizers agreed to the UCI’s new regulations concerning entry to all WorldTour races, whereby all 18 ProTeams get automatic qualification — leaving room for just four wild-card invites to the grand tours (and seven for shorter stage races and the one-day classics).

This successful conclusion to the long-standing dispute was worthy of major headlines. Instead, Europe’s top sports daily, L’Équipe, which over the years routinely blamed the UCI for a battle that threatened to close down pro cycling, buried the story in last Saturday’s edition on page 23 in a two-sentence paragraph.

It read: “The new qualification rules for events put in place by the UCI were accepted by the race organizers, whose international association (AIOCC) held its general assembly (yesterday). A development that’s less trifling than it seems, insofar as it officially brings to an end the long discord that opposed the UCI to the grand tours.”

That news was a clear victory for the negotiation process that McQuaid helped to engineer following a change of regime at Tour organizer ASO in 2008; but such legislation rarely gets the publicity it deserves.

Dealing with problems in international pro road racing and high-profile doping cases are only part of McQuaid’s purview — about which the UCI president elaborated in this exclusive interview with VeloNews. In Part 2, McQuaid talks about developments in mountain biking, an improved relationship between the UCI and the bicycle industry, the difficulty of increasing cycling’s popularity on television, the controversial decision to drop the individual pursuit as a medal event at the 2012 Olympic Games, and the chances of cyclocross becoming an Olympic sport.

VN: How do you see the state of mountain biking?

PM: It’s at a level that’s neither going up nor going down. And it’s something that the UCI needs to seriously address in the next year or two for a couple of reasons. One, it’s an Olympic discipline, and it’s very important that it remains an Olympic discipline; so we have to take cognizance of the evaluations that the International Olympic Committee do, because the Olympic Games belong to the IOC. They can decide what’s in and what’s not in … and if mountain biking is presented in a way that is not attractive to the public and television then it risks its position on the Olympic program. There’ll be another evaluation of that program in 2013, so we have until then to make mountain biking more attractive to television in particular.

By its nature and its traditional presentation, mountain biking is the most difficult and most expensive to produce for television in the Olympic program. In Athens, for instance, there were 45 TV cameras needed to cover the mountain bike course. We have since reduced the distance of mountain bike courses somewhat, but it still needs to be made into a more attractive discipline. I have great respect for the athletes because it’s an extremely hard discipline, but it doesn’t come across on television like that. We don’t want to turn into cyclocross, which is an attractive sport, but we do need to make changes.

One aspect of this is the recent improvements that have been made in the relationship between the UCI and the (bicycle) industry. That’s come about for two reasons. For a long time, I’ve felt the UCI should be closer to the industry and we should be working in harmony; and then, because of the problems last year with bikes being outside the regulations, I decided that we had to get closer to the industry. Hence, I went to Taiwan for the first time, to the bike show, in March; and then in Friedrichshafen, at Eurobike, we made a presentation to the industry as to how we’re approaching the problems on materials and so forth. So we’re now going from what was a philosophical approach to the regulations to reflect the (1996) Lugano Charter on how the sport should be regulated; and maybe from the industry’s point of view they weren’t clear enough or too ambiguous, which resulted in some of them going over the limits. So we’ve changed into a more engineering-oriented approach to it, and employed an engineer in the UCI; and we’re now working closely with EPFL, which is a high-level engineering department of (Switzerland’s) Lausanne University. So all the bike manufacturers will liaise with the EPFL to get approval for the dimensions and so forth. This will develop over the next couple of years and help the sport as well.

This brings us back to the discussions I had in Friedrichshafen with the owners of the main manufacturers, and each one of them said to me that we need to consider what we’re doing with mountain biking, because it’s extremely important to the industry. So they’ve agreed to work with the UCI to try to bring the sport up a couple of notches. So we’ll sit down with them in the new year and hopefully work out something.

My reasoning for getting close to the industry was, the UCI’s working very hard to globalize the sport, and we’re under pressure from the IOC to do that, and if we do so the beneficiary is the industry. It’s in both our interests, so why can’t we work together to help globalize cycling?

VN: The engineering connection, is this for all types of bikes or just mountain bikes?

PM: For all types of bikes and in particular for road bikes, because that’s where we have the biggest problems. And it’s also for (new) materials. The EPFL is run by Professor Jan-Anders Manson, who has worked for instance with Boeing in Seattle for several years, and worked on the development of the Alinghi (America’s Cup-winning) boat and the solar-powered plane that flew over Switzerland for over 24 hours. The EPFL is also the unit that FINA (the international swimming association) went to to help with their problems on race-swimsuit technology.

So they’ll also help us in the matter of new materials and technology, all of which can have an effect on the athlete’s performance that wouldn’t fall within the philosophy of the Lugano Charter.

VN: How will Manson work with the manufacturers?

PM: My understanding is that manufacturing (a new bike) is a three-year process from the original design through delivery. Now, manufacturers can come to him at an early stage — there’s obviously confidentiality involved here, but he’s working in a very professional way. If they want to come with particular components, or whatever, they will come to him with their designs or new technology, and if he determines it’s not gonna be something that will aid the effort of the cyclist, he’ll say I’ll go to the UCI and you can go ahead with that process. And they’ll come back to him at the next stage ….

When I made my presentation on our philosophy in Friedrichshafen, he made one on his approach to things. The reaction from the industry was very positive. They see that they can deal with someone at the same level who understands their position and ours. Also, an engineer is coming from the EPFL to work on a three-year contract for the UCI as the liaison person. All this will serve the industry a lot better than we have in the past.

VN: Moving on to track, which is a big part of the sport, especially at the Olympics … What do you see as the state of the game there, starting with your decision to make changes to the Olympic program, which has eliminated the individual pursuit from the 2012 Games.

PM: I think people need to understand the situation the UCI was in with relation to the track program. First of all, we were under pressure — the IOC told us, as well as all sports, that we had to be gender equitable. That was something we needed and what I think in the long term is a good thing for the sport. When we were in the situation of having seven men’s events and three women’s events, federations, national Olympic committees and governments were naturally diverting most of their resources to the men’s track program. And so women’s track racing wasn’t progressing very much. The fact that we’ve made it five and five means that the resources will be spread equally and women’s track will now develop at a fast rate over the next two Olympic Games.

The second aspect is that when we decided we had to do it — and this was discussed amongst the track commission, and the federations, who were told the situation we were in — it didn’t come as a big surprise. Our thoughts were, what do we do if we have to drop two men’s events, and do we have three sprint events and two endurance events, or vice versa? Now since track racing is basically a sprint sport, we felt three sprint and two endurance would be the best way of doing it.

After that we had to decide what events you do, and that’s where we had the hard decisions to make — and the hard decision was to drop the individual pursuit, the Madison and the points race, and replace with one event, the omnium. Now, the points and the pursuit are both part of the omnium. Also, had we not introduced the omnium and kept the individual pursuit, we would have had a track program that would have been over in about three days, because they’re all quick events. Whereas the omnium gave us the opportunity not only for a five-day program but to extend it to six days.

These are factors that the IOC recognized and encouraged, and for London in particular they were screaming at us for an extra day in track racing — because that’s gonna be the most popular event there in 2012. Besides all this, we still have an individual pursuit and a points race (as part of the omnium) and also included a new one, the elimination race, or devil-take-the-hindmost as we used to call it in my day, again as part of the omnium.

As for the Madison, that wasn’t such a difficult position, even though I have great respect for the Madison, which is an incredibly skilful race to watch. The problem is, live in the track, if you understand what you’re watching you can follow the Madison. But as soon as you take your eye off it, it’s gone. Now, commentators on TV end up having even bigger problems with it …

People also need to understand that the Olympic Games and the world championships are two different events altogether. When the world championships are on television anyone switching them on has switched them on because they want to watch the world track championships, and they understand what’s going on. But 80 percent of the audience at the Olympic Games don’t understand what they’re looking at. They’re just general sports people that have got caught up in the Olympic Games and are watching. So if you’ve got a Madison on the program nobody will watch it because they can’t follow it.

These are all factors that we had to take into account, all of which brought us down to the five and five that we’ve got. Now, I’m not particularly happy with the five and five. I’ve had a discussion with the president of the IOC already, and I’ve said that we do risk damaging track cycling … if this program is not 100 percent successful.

What I’d like to see is to go to six and six, and bring in a third endurance event whatever that might be, which would give us a balance that would be much more equitable. And it would be more in tune with keeping the track a strong discipline, because the endurance guys who ride the track are important — a lot of them are road guys who come to the track. And it’s important to have them instead of just pure sprinters. My objectives post-London would be to try very hard to get another medal event in both men’s and women’s track racing.

VN: What about the track World Cups? They seem to be a mixed bag: some are successful, others don’t attract spectators at all.

PM: It’s true that some venues don’t attract spectators. I don’t fully understand why because the racing can be spectacular. One thing I would say about the track World Cup, it has been responsible for the massive improvement in the quality of track racing. Were it not for the World Cups, you would have the riders only coming together once a year for the world championships. Here, you get the best in the world coming together four or five times a year. It’s because of that constant competition between the top guys that the standard has gone up.

The World Cup still needs to achieve something in terms of the live spectator audience and television audience. The UCI’s problem is that we’re limited in resources. We’re not like FIFA (the international soccer association), which receives big television fees to broadcast their games. We’re the other way round and have to buy television time for certain disciplines.

The big tours have no problem getting on TV, but once you leave that then there’s a lot of sports competing for time. There’s a lot of channels and then the Internet with social networking and live streaming, which has actually diminished the desire of TV to pay money for sports events because people can watch it for free…. If we could find some big sponsors who wanted to work with us on a discipline like track we could do a lot with it. But we don’t have the money to do that at the moment.

VN: In North America, cyclocross has become a big part of cycling, and the world championships are coming to North America in a few years. Do you think there’s any chance, now that you’re member of the IOC, that ’cross could become part of the winter Olympics — because it is a winter sport?

PM: That’s actually a discussion I had recently with the president of the IOC (Jacques Rogge), and his response was no. My discussion with him was on the back of a discussion my colleague Lamine Diack at the IAAF (international track & field association) had with him because he was pushed at his congress to ask that cross-country running become part of the Winter Olympics. Rogge said no because the Olympic charter states that Winter Olympic disciplines must take place fundamentally on snow or ice.

Cyclocross can take place on snow but that’s not a primary part of the sport — it is a winter discipline that takes part on grass. So it doesn’t match the criteria to be in the Winter Olympic Games unless they change the charter. And cycling wouldn’t have the power or capacity within the IOC, or I wouldn’t, to push for a change in the charter for something like that, whereas the IAAF might. If they were to achieve that for cross-country running we would be on their heels straight away.

(Editor’s note: Cyclocross would qualify as a winter Olympic sport on another criterion, the number of nations that take part. Whereas sports in the summer Olympics need participation from a minimum of 50 countries, only 15 are needed for winter sports’ disciplines. And currently the world cyclocross championships attract teams from about 20 countries.)

Having said that, the discipline is growing, it’s successful and its one of the most spectacular events to watch and one of the most physically demanding to compete in. And the fact that it’s now growing well outside of its traditional heartland in northern Europe is very satisfying for the UCI. That’s why we’ve given a world championships to USA Cycling (to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, in January 2013). There are some good promoters in North America that want to develop the discipline.

(In the third and final part of this interview, Pat McQuaid will talk about what he has learned about the world of cycling in his five years of traveling the globe as UCI president, the work done at the UCI’s World Cycling Center in Switzerland, a second look at the sport’s major problems with doping, the continued expansion of road racing worldwide, and the future of cycling at the world championship and Olympic level.)

Editor’s note:

The 25-year-old Yamamoto, who successfully defended his Asian crown in South Korea, in September, finished 15 seconds behind Chan, with China’s Duan Zhiqiang 2:32 back to take the bronze.

Chan covered a the grueling Dafushan mountain course, which was modeled on the one used for the Beijing Olympics, in 2:11:34.

“I had set myself the goal to be the world champion, but now I have lost the Asian Games race I can’t say that I’m the champion, so I’m kind of disappointed,” Yamamoto said.

On his slick website, yamamotokohei.com, he had claimed victory was “a matter of course.”

“How can a man who aims to become number one in the world lose in Asia? It’s impossible to imagine,” he wrote.

He blamed fatigue for his performance, finishing second in the 32.4 km (20 miles) race over six laps, during which he overtook Chan early on, only for the Hong Kong racer to fight back and eventually hold on for a close victory.

“In September I was in the world championships and I’ve been racing since February, so I’m tired physically and mentally,” Yamamoto said.

“Now I have to adjust my mental state before the London Olympics (in 2012).”

Chan’s surprise victory was Hong Kong’s first in Asian Games mountain biking and brings a decisive end to Japan’s stranglehold on the event.

It also adds to the one gold, four silver and single bronze that Hong Kong has won in track cycling at the games.

“We wanted two gold medals — and we got them,” said Hong Kong coach Shen Jinkang.

Chan, a regular top finisher on the Asian circuit, competed for Hong Kong in the team pursuit at the 2006 Asian Games but exchanged the track for the wild and became the former British colony’s first mountain biker to appear at the Olympics.

“I’ve beaten Yamamoto twice before, so I was determined to strive to win in my country or I wouldn’t have been satisfied,” said Chan.

Women

In the women’s final, it was a China one-two, as Ren Chengyuan comfortably took gold, with compatriot Shi Qinglan riding to silver and Rie Katayama, of Japan, winning the bronze.

China’s Ma Yanping won at the 1998 and 2002 Asian Games, but there was no mountain bike event in Doha four years ago.

Ren, who was the hot favorite, carried on the tradition, showing why she is a three-time Asian champion and former under-23 world champion.

Ren had suffered severe disappointment at the Olympics in 2008, finishing only fifth after experiencing technical difficulties, but she was rarely troubled this time.

“I was in the lead for the whole race and was very tired and felt a little lonely,” said Ren.

At the Denver premiere of Race Across the Sky 2010, a film about the Colorado mountain bike race, the RadioShack rider was asked if he’d be back to defend his title. “Someday,” he said with a grin.

Earlier, Leipheimer had joked that his teammate Lance Armstrong, who won the race in 2009 but skipped it last year, had “tricked” Leipheimer into starting the race.

“He was the one I was cursing the last 20 miles!” Leipheimer said. “He’s at home laughing his ass off … I didn’t expect it to be that tough. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

More seriously, Leipheimer praised the event’s uniqueness and said he was inspired by the hundreds of racers of all ages who accept the challenge to complete the course every year.

“The human spirit that they carry into it is really inspirational,” he said.

Leipheimer, six-time Leadville winner Dave Weins, 2010 runner-up Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and two-time women’s winner Rebecca Rusch attended the premiere and participated in a panel discussion before and after the film.

Before the halfway mark at the race, Leipheimer broke away from leaders with Horgan-Kobelski, the national marathon mountain bike champion and, like Leipheimer, a first-time Leadville racer. Leipheimer pulled away in the final 15 miles and held his gap to the line, setting a course record. “I was running scared the whole way,” Leipheimer said.

While Leipheimer sounded uncertain about a 2011 title defense — its proximity to the 2011 Quiznos Pro Challenge, which starts eight days later, might have something to do with it — Horgan-Kobelski sounded more interested.

“I want to add my name to the winner’s list,” he said to applause from his home-state audience.

The film opened at about 500 theaters nationally for a one-night showing Thursday. It will be shown again at many of the same theaters on Nov. 9.

Related: Discuss the movie at Singletrack.com

Race Across The Sky 2010 from Citizen Pictures on Vimeo.