Welcome to CABCP: Valkenburg.
After a superb weekend of sunny racing in Holland, for the first round of the World Cup Cyclo Cross in Valkenburg, cyclephotos and grit.cx bring you the highlights in captured image form.
Womens Race:
Before the racing started, a minute’s silence was held before the women’s race, to remember Annefleur Kalvenhaar, who died during a crash earlier this year.
Helen Wyman had a great start and led the field for most of the race, however, Katie Compton caught her with a lap to go, Wyman couldn’t follow her wheel and she had to settle for second.
Compton had a bad start and she also suffered a mechanical early on. She worked hard to catch up with the leading riders and not knowing how far the lead was, she kept on going full gas when she passed Wyman.
Mens race:
Kevin Pauwels is getting better and better. His first podium of the season was the result of a consistent ride through the race, even a nasty crash couldn’t slow him down. While a lot of the European pros are still using cantilever brakes, Pauwels was one of the few on discs today.
Jeremy Powers came with the goal to finish in the top ten and he didn’t disappoint. His career highlight at World Cups is a 7th place, so today’s 9th is a bit off of that, but he found it promising, that he didn’t lose time on the running section, something that has always been his weak point and the targeted training during the summer has paid off handsomely
Corne van Kessel is one of those riders, who finishes in the top 10, top 15 on most days, but very rarely on the podium. Today, he showed solid form and his recent good form means, that he’ll see him more often near or on the podium in the coming weeks.
There were many things that motivated Lars van der Haar to win today: to repeat last year’s victory, to win on home soil, to break a string of nearly missing the top of the podium. Whatever it was, it worked, because he put a gap between him and the rest of the field so fast, it became soon obvious that they could only race for second place.
Don’t forget you can get more images just like these in the Cyclocross Album by visiting the Cyclephotos website and get a round up of last year’s season in the great coffee table book from the 13/14 season.
CABCP is proudly presented in collaboration with Cyclephotos’ Balint Hamvas
