CX-mas time

A trio of our riders, one of them – R.Glajza – being also the National Coach of Cyclocross, spent their Christmas on the road and racing. Young U23 rider Ondrej Glajza completed the team.

They participated in a World Cup in Belgian Namur one day before the Christmas Eve. The course in Namur might have been typical for a race some 10 years ago, these days races tend to be more flat – Namur is situated on a top of a hill overlooking the city of Namur. The highest point of the course passes a Citadelle on top of the hill, a technical descent inbetween trees follows and brings you to the most difficult part of the course – a long muddy descent followed by a muddy sloping section.

This sloping section was the cause of numerous mistakes and dives into the mud of riders in all categories. A long run later followed with another tricky muddy descent and riders then climbed back to the only flat section around the pits and the finish line. Only two of our riders took part in Namur race. Martin Haring in the Elite Men and Zuzana Vojtášová in the Elite Women category. Martin had a really good day that day, he finished in 39th place what was his best result until then. The men’s race was –as usually- dominated by the Belgians. Kevin Pauwels rode the majority of the race way in front of his rivals. The podium was completed by two other riders who finish majority of the races they participate in on the podium, Sven Nys and Kevin Pauwels, the later one loosing his silver medal to Nys only several hundred meters before the finish.

Women’s race was dominated by K.Compton, who managed to retain the first place despite her numerous mistakes and falls in the muddy technical sections. Czech K.Nash finished runner-up and the current World Champion M.Vos worked her way up to a final third place. Zuzana fought hard with the muddy and sloping course, but as her current performance level is low, she finished being lapped by the winner Vos.Two days of training and rest followed the Namur race. National Coach surprised everyone by cooking a traditional cabbage soup and fried fish on the Christmas Eve. This special Season’s dinner also served as a nice dinner to celebrate Haring’s birthday. It was Robert’s first cooking experience, until now he cooked only ham-and-eggs and fried eggs for his kids. It definitely made the right holiday mood.

Racing followed two days later on 26.12. in Belgian Zolder on the famous moto-circuit. The course is situated mostly in the neighboring forest with a sandy ground and in a sloping area opposing the main tribune. Two tricky sandy descents played again an important role in all races – except for the women’s race which is almost always decided by the performance level of riders, not necessarily their technique skills. Our National Coach Robert Glajza raced this day as well. He had a really fast start, eased his tempo and tried to retain his position after the first 2 laps. He was later lapped by the first riders and thus called off the course.

Martin Haring proved his improving performance once again. After a slow and not very assertive start he slowly moved his way up to a final 30.place. He once again improved his best placing in the World Cup races. His form has been going up gradually and consistently over the past few years and over the past few months particularly. His tight win in the National Championship where he prevailed over the ex-European Champion and ex-National Champion Robert Gavenda must have boosted his cycling ego and helped him believe more in his performance level and riding skills. National Champion title must be a challenge and a motivation for all his races now, but no one thought Martin would prevail on a track that doesn’t suit him much over big racers such as Gerben de Knegt or Dieter Vanthourenhout. He was actually very close to finishing 25th with a small group of riders riding at a sight, he was moving slowly towards them, but didn’t have enough time to attack the 25th place that would secure him a nomination for the World Championship in American Louisville. No new faces on the podium this time – Sven Nys once again prevailed (mentally) over N.Albert second and Z.Štybar outsprinted his fellow countryman R.Šimúnek.

Women’s category was clearly dominated by M.Vos, followed by a World Cup leader K.Compton and the Belgian S.Cant who lost more than a minute to the winner. Zuzana Vojášová lacked power in this extremely fast course and thus was lapped.

Despite accomplishing his best result ever, Martin Haring was slightly dissapointed after the race: „I made a lot of mistakes in the first lap so I found myself far way back accompanied by cyclists from Australia and New Zealand. Step by step I made my way up to to the final 30th place. If my start was better or if I hadn’t made so many mistakes in the first lap, I could have finished even better. My qualification for the World Championship in the USA was really close and attainable today, I’m really sorry I wasted my chances. I didn’t have a good feeling of this course today, it took me long time to get tuned to the course – it’s surprising I managed to attain my best result ever today.”

Zuzana Vojtášová reviewed all 5 days in Belgium: „The times when I was able to finish a World Cup race without being lapped are way far away. The rules for slow riders are even tougher now than in the past where you could ride until being actually lapped by the first rider. Now they take you off the race 2-3 minutes earlier or 1 lap sooner than in previous years. I tought I would get lapped earlier in the demanding and technical Namur race and hoped for a better result in Zolder on the contrary. I didn’t mind the mud and rain in Namur, it’s actually conditions that suit me well, but I was not able to ride at a high intensity due to my weak stamina. I had a much better feeling of my riding in Zolder, but was not able to compete due to lack of power in the super fast race. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to stay in a small group riding ahead of me, so I was loosing a lot of time and energy in the flat straight parts of Zolder race. Despite my weak results, I guess I was never before enjoying cycling and cyclocross particularly as I am this year. I haven’t trained much over the past few weeks, due to my work limitations and also due to extremelly bad weather in my home town in the past few weeks. I wasn’t ready to continue racing during this Christmas time either, but accepted National Coach’s invitation when all the your riders turned him down for these X-mas races. So I participated just to make our team bigger in number and especially helped our guys in the pit. Robert couldn’t pit for both Martin and Ondrej in the muddy Namur race when all riders changed bikes at least once in every lap. I’m happy I helped our National Team at least this way. But I have to admit I had my best Christmas holiday ever – I’m not much into celebrating X-mas, so spending 5 days in a warm Belgium, racing and riding my bike was the best option for me to spend 5 days off work. Robert prepared a surprise for us and cooked a traditional Christmas cabbage soup, so we did have Christmas after all as well. As a side effect of my presence in Belgium, I also arranged for some of the best CX riders in the world to grant me an interview for our national cyclocross webpage. You can look forward to interviews with K.Compton, K.Nash, S.Nys, N.Albert, Z.Stybar, K.Pauwels, K.Vantornout and others. Feel free to drop me a line in case there’s anything particular you want to ask or were always curious about these riders. I will send them questions to answer by email after this weekend when their ‘Tour of Christmas‘ is over.“

Photos by Lydia Van de Meerssche, Jozef Cooreman