Mostly due to the limitations of things such as my desire to get some sleep during the Fayetteville Worlds weekend, we were unable to provide in-depth race reports of the two Junior races. Fortunately, we did talk to top North American finishers Ava Holmgren of Canada and AJ August of the U.S. following their races, so they were not forgotten.
Now that things have settled down, we wanted to give some love to the Junior races before we wrap our coverage of the weekend.
The next British phenom Zoe Backstedt won the Junior Women’s race in dominant fashion, and Swiss rider Jan Christen won the Junior Men’s race in a three-up sprint. You can scroll onward for a photo gallery from the two Junior races.
Admittedly, a lot of these shots might look kind of familiar. The powerline climb and the big hill were omnipresent features on the course and were guaranteed to produce decent images, so in whirlwind of the race, it was easy to get drawn to those spots. Also, knowing that the Junior races would likely not be written up, it was tempting to use these as practice to dial in the good spots for the afternoon races.
Hindsight is 20/20 and such is life. Let it be a lesson for the next chance I get to go to Worlds.