1 February 2013 |
Despite a couple of sketchy moments on a snowy and icy course, world number one Mathieu Van Der Poel successfully defended his Junior Men’s world title in the opening race of the 2013 World Cyclo-Cross Championships in Louisville, USA.
Jake Womersley braves the snow in the Junior Men's race
The tall Dutchman, son of the legendary Adri, world champion in 1996, went to the front from the off and set about the race with the confidence of a rider who has gone all season unbeaten. A momentary lapse of concentration saw him slide to earth (or should that be snow?) on an innocuous corner on the second lap, but apart from that he looked in total control throughout, building his lead steadily lap-by-lap.
Fellow Dutchman Martijn Budding was similarly untroubled in second, he too moving clear of the rest early in the race and from then to the finish able to ride alone whilst the battle for third raged behind him.
That battle was eventually won by Adam Toupalik of the Czech Republic who, along with Logan Owen of the USA joined the Belgians Peeters and Cleppe in a cracking shoot-out for that last medal.
Owen looked the most likely as he caught the Belgians and tried to ride clear. However, in his haste he lost his composure a little and dropped his chain and fell back. Toupalik battled through to the last lap in the company of the other three before, during the last lap, just turning up the pace enough to eek out a small gap which he held to the line.
Jake Womersley in 17th and Jack Ravenscroft in 18th were GB’s best finishers, a pair of really solid results given their relatively lowly gridding. Billy Harding in 23rd and Adam King in 26th were our other riders.
1 VAN DER POEL Mathieu NETHERLANDS 00:40:47
2 BUDDING Martijn NETHERLANDS +00:57
3 TOUPALIK Adam CZECH REPUBLIC +01:19
4 OWEN Logan UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +01:23
5 CLEPPE Nicolas BELGIUM +01:25
6 GRAB Dominic SWITZERLAND +01:33
7 PEETERS Yannick BELGIUM +01:38
8 HERMANS Quinten BELGIUM +01:47
9 BOETS Ben BELGIUM +02:02
10 VINCENT Leo FRANCE +02:33
11 WHITE Curtis UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +02:43
12 JANSEN Richard NETHERLANDS +02:53
13 GOOSSENS Kobe BELGIUM +02:53
14 RUSSO Clement FRANCE +03:20
15 POKORNY Karel CZECH REPUBLIC +03:20
16 TODARO Manuel ITALY +03:31
17 WOMERSLEY Jake GREAT BRITAIN +03:36
18 RAVENSCROFT Jack GREAT BRITAIN +03:46
19 DISERA Peter CANADA +03:52
20 COLLEDANI Nadir ITALY +04:03
21 KÖNIG Marco GERMANY +04:14
22 BERTOLINI Gioele ITALY +04:21
23 HARDING Billy GREAT BRITAIN +04:24
24 VASTL Jan CZECH REPUBLIC +04:38
25 CHANCE Maxx UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +04:58
26 KING Adam GREAT BRITAIN +05:03
27 LOMBARDO David UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +05:04
28 PEARSON Trevor CANADA +05:12
29 GESBERT Elie FRANCE +05:13
30 NILES Isaac CANADA +05:36
31 BASSETT Stephen UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -1LAP
32 SYMINGTON Neil CANADA -2LAP
33 YAMADA Yoshiki JAPAN -3LAP
