Fayetteville US Pro Cup Weekend Wraps with Sunday's XCO Finale on Saturday
Heavy rain the forecast changed the schedule again, with the second US Pro Cup XCO race moving from Sunday to Saturday
Last week, we joked about the US Pro Cup mountain bike races in Fayetteville having some REAL CYCLOCROSS CONDITIONS thanks to a healthy amount of rain that did not come during the 2022 Cyclocross World Championships. For a second it seemed that mountain biking, at least in this instance, was more cyclocross than cyclocross.
However, as Lee Corso would say, not so fast my friend.
The finale of the 2 XCO, 1 XCC extended weekend omnium at Centennial Park in Fayetteville was scheduled for Sunday, but after the forecast called for another day of rain on Sunday, organizers decided to bump things up by a day and run the second XCO race on Saturday. After some uncertainty early in the morning, organizers made the call to hold the races on Saturday and avoid potential sloppy conditions on Sunday.
Mountain bike conditions are the conditions you race mountain bikes in, unless you reschedule to avoid conditions you don’t like, apparently.
As we did in Friday’s post, here’s a quick rundown of the results from Sunday’s Saturday’s XCO Fayetteville finale and a totally made-up US Pro Cup Omnium for the weekend’s results.
Elite Women
In Thursday’s XCO opener, Savilia Blunk beat out Haley Batten for the win. On Saturday, it was two new riders at the top of the results sheet. Sofia Gomez Villafane took the win by getting off the front early and holding her lead. Friend of the Bulletin Jenn Jackson followed up on her success in Friday’s XCC by beating out a group of riders to take 2nd. Thursday’s winner Blunk took 3rd, with Kate Courtney and Haley Batten rounding out the wide-angle podium.
Top 15 results are below.
Elite Men
It probably wasn’t too big of a surprise that reigning Short Track World Champion Christopher Blevins won *checks notes* Friday’s Short Track race, but he also made it perfect sweep of the weekend by winning Saturday’s XCO race as well. Young star Riley Amos took 2nd, and then the Canucks went 3-4-5, with Gunnar Holmgren, Andrew L’Esperance, and Tyler Orschel locking down those three spots.
Top 15 results again down below.
Juniors
Junior Women
Ava Holmgren
Isabella Holmgren
Bailey Cioppa
Lauren Aggeler
Adeline Jonas
Junior Men
Cayden Parker
Jack Spranger
Zorak Paille
Vaughen Veenendaal
Gabe Harrelson
Fayetteville Megaweekend Omnium
Borrowing a page from fellow Media Pit co-host Micheal Boedigheimer’s playbook, the three-race series in Fayetteville just begs for an overall omnium tally. Since this is totally made up, I mulled over the options for scoring the omnium and settled on the new 2022 UCI World Cup scoring system that awards 250 points to the XCO winner and 80 points to the XCC winner.
Savilia Blunk took the Elite Women’s win after winning on Thursday, finishing 7th in the XCC race, and capping the weekend with a 3rd-place finish in Saturday’s XCO race. The 23-year-old Orange Seal racer is having quite the spring, nearly winning the Mid South, appearing near the top of the Groadio Power Rankings, and now winning the Fayetteville US Pro Cup Omnium.
Spoiler alert, Christopher Blevins won the Elite Men’s omnium win, literally no matter how you awarded the points. One million points for the Short Track? He still won. That kind of thing happens when you sweep the weekend.
Elite Women
Savilia Blunk
Sofia Gomez Villafane
Haley Batten
Jenn Jackson
Kate Courtney
Elite Men
Christopher Blevins
Riley Amos
Andrew L’Esperance
Tyler Orschel
Peter Disera
Quinten Disera
Next up on the 2022 Pro XCT series is the SoHo Bike Fest in Utah May 7-8.