This weekend saw round two of the UCI Cyclo Cross World Cup from the sand of Koksijde and an all new venue for round Five of the Superprestige series at the Ardennes home of Belgian motor sport, Spa.
Koksijde
The two lean years is about to end for Kevin Pauwels. After two seasons of not showing much, he is winning races again and he has also found himself in the World Cup overall leader’s jersey, after finishing second at Koksijde.
Wout Van Aert never thought he could winsuch a prestigious race at the age of 20. Though he was one of the youngest riders in the field, he pulled away from the main group midway and he never looked back. It was a special win for him, because his team manager and mentor, Niels Albert has won here many times and he wanted to do something special for him. A dominant win might have done the trick.
Katie Compton suffered an asthma attack during the race. Upon finishing the race, his husband, Mark Legg-Compton tried to run to her to give her the inhaler, however, one of the marshalls had other ideas. The moment above was when Legg-Compton decided to make a run for it to give the urgently needed medication to Compton.
Spa
Spa is a new venue in the Superprestige calendar. Similarly to the World Cup race in Zolder, the race utilizes the F1 course of the fiendishly difficult Spa-Francorchamps F1 race.
It would be easy to attribute Nikki Harris’ first win of the season to the fact, that her rival, Sanne Cant didn’t finish the race. She was riding behind Cant, no matter how hard the Belgian tried to get rid of her. A well deserved win and a well-timed morale booster, before next week’s all-important race at Milton Keynes.
Wout van Aert continued his domination – but this time among the U23 riders. As he said yesterday, he is only 20, so while he can be good at a few races, even among the elite men, he can’t be good at every race, hence he needs to be selective in his race program.
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
