For the second time the UCI Elite Cyclocross Championships will be held in the United States. The first was in Louisville, Kentucky 2013 (in conjunction with Masters Worlds).
I was unable to attend the first event. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from the start of a serious Staph infection. Teresa was in Louisville after competing in a snowy Masters race. I watched on Sporza from the couch via a VPN. If you go back to the video, you’ll see Teresa and a Localcycling.com teammate in the intro footage.
Teresa and I had been in Europe for other editions of the event. I was near the final corner at Hooglede-Gits when Erwin Vervecken got the jump on Jonathan Page. Teresa was on the other side of the country, in our cabin with food poisoning.
We did manage to spectate the 2009 Championship race together in Hoogerheide. We had been to World Cups at that venue prior (and have returned since).
We won’t be attending Fayetteville this year. It’s not that we don’t wish to. Lots of our friends will be cheering and partying there. Arkansas has some serious issues, most notably in this case, marginalizing some of our friends and politicizing a serious health issue. The state of Arkansas isn’t unique for either of those. And we’re pleased to see that the cycling community has taken the opportunity to begin addressing the bigotry of the former.
We also are glad to see the event is taking basic COVID precautions. While some of our European friends are concerned that these measures are less strict than at home events, IF you’re vaccinated and follow those guidelines, attendance should be safe. For most.
We’re skipping, not because of concern for ourselves (we’re boosted), but because of family members that are still at risk IF we were to expose them. The health of a three year old grandchild and octogenarian parents is more important this time.
So, we’ll be watching and cheering and listening to the Flemish speaking commentary on Sporza again this year.
I want to give a shout out to my friend Bill Marshall of Specialized who sent the above cool logo. Bill is a force of nature for cyclocross: Directing the KCCX team, promoter of two National Championships, and assisting the Donderdag! grass roots program in KC.