[note: When I started writing this entry, I thought it would just be a quick race recap used as an excuse to post a photo gallery. About halfway through, it became an exploration of UCI rules and regulations and the apparent blind spot of severe weather policies in competitive mountain biking. If you don't want to take that journey with me, I hope you at least enjoy the pictures. I had fun taking them.]
In early October 2019, Fayetteville, Arkansas, hosted a cyclocross race at Centennial Park. There were no MTB trails or even a main road into the venue. The Northwest Arkansas Druid Chapter had yet to build Razorback Stonehenge or construct staircases on the side of a human-made boulder hill. The 2019 Fayettecross event took place predominantly in a flat field. As far as mountain biking was concerned, Centennial Park was an uncarved block—full potential yet to be realized.
Over the next two years, the landscape of the park completely changed. The powers that be installed a legit tarmac finishing straight, rock features, berms, jumps, and single-track, transforming the park into a world-class race venue hosting not only UCI Mountain Bike events but cyclocross world cups and the 2022 Cyclocross World Championships.
Between cyclocross and mountain biking, Centennial Park is probably the venue I've visited more than any other in the past three years. Among my favorite events that take place there are the US Pro Cup MTB races. This past week, Centennial Park hosted the US Pro Cup MTB, Fayetteville p/b Walmart, which held two UCI XCO events and one UCI XCC short-track event. Many top North and South American riders attended this early season test.
On the men's side, Specialized Factory Racing's Christopher Blevins was the hands-down favorite coming into the week. A former short-track World Champ and a guy who can fight with the front group of World Cup XCO races, Blevins was the man to beat. But that's not to say he didn't have his challengers. Riley Amos (Trek Factory Racing) scored a big XCO win a week earlier at the Vail Lake stop of the US Pro Cup MTB, and Carter Woods (Giant) won the Vail Lake short track.
On the women's side, all eyes were on Kate Courtney (Scott-SRAM), Savilia Blunk (Rockrider), and the Trek Factory Racing duo of Gwendalyn Gibson and Madigan Munro. Haley Batten (Specialized Factory Racing), who swept the first round of the US Pro Cup XCO and XCC events at Vail Lake, skipped Fayetteville to race in Europe.
I'm not sure a straight-up race recap is in the cards. Shooting races isn't the best vantage point for telling a cohesive story about what is going on. I'm just trying to figure out who I need to take a photo of as the group flies by in a cloud of dust. So instead of a blow-by-blow, I'll limit this to a few anecdotes from the week.
Men
Let's talk about Blevins. He ended up winning the first XCO race on Wednesday, before sitting out the XCC, trying not to exacerbate a cold and ultimately coming back on Saturday to win the second cross-country event.
It’s common knowledge that you must be fast, technically sound and strategically savvy to win a bike race. However, just being fast doesn't always get the job done. If racers are equally matched, it will come down to who makes the winning move at the right time. This could happen on the first lap, the penultimate lap or even 50 meters from the finish.
Most riders keep their tactics close to the vest. They want an element of surprise. The ability to catch their opponents off guard, get a gap, and carry that to the finish. Blevins is not most riders. At least not when it comes to Fayetteville.
If you've watched any race at Centennial Park, be it cross country, short track or even cyclocross, unless your name is Marianne Vos, you know it's almost impossible to come around someone once you hit the tarmac and start to sprint. That means that the sprint before the sprint at Fayetteville is crucial. You want to make sure you're in the lead coming around that final turn and into the finish. Blevins knows this. The whole field knows this. But the entire field also knows precisely where Blevins is going to attack. He's done it the same way every time. Pass the second tech zone, attack the rise going into the final turns. Every time. Same thing. No gamesmanship, no surprises. He may be second wheel at the tech zone, but then he's attacking. It's not a guess or a prediction; it's what will happen.
You know how we're all watching F1 these days? Instead of a DRS zone sign, Fayetteville should put up a BAZ sign after pit 2: the Blevins Attack Zone. Maybe we'll get the Wide Angle Podium network to sponsor it because in 2023, just as he's done in the past, Blevins attacked after the tech zone and took that gap to the finish for two wins on the week.
Blevins and Amos were the top riders for the US, with Amos getting second and third in the XCOs and first in the XCC. The XCC race for Amos was a bit of redemption after getting boxed out of the short-track win in Vail Lake. After those two US riders, the Canadians dominated the midfield. Carter Woods is flying. Along with Blevins and Amos, he was in the trio of riders who rode away from the rest of the pack. But Sean Fincham, Peter Disera, Leandre Bouchard, Andrew L'Esperance, Gunnar Holmgren, Tyler Orschel and Quinton Disera went four through 10 for Canada on Saturday. Bradyn Lange and Brayden Johnson finished seventh and eighth on Wednesday to break up the all-Canada midfield.
Women
On the women's side, this was an excellent week for Kate Courtney. She won the first XCO race and the XCC race by attacking early and riding everyone off her wheel. It looked like World Champion-era Courtney out there. Her progression from Vail Lake, a week and a half before, to this race was phenomenal. Hopefully, she keeps building this form and will be on the pointy end of the upcoming world cups.
Riding at the front with Courtney were Gibson and Blunk, two riders on World Cup teams who are racing better than ever. Gibson and Blunk even have a budding rivalry going with two photo finishes at Fayetteville between the pair. Blunk led out the sprint of Saturday's XCO race and looked like she had it won easily before a late bike throw from Gibson put the victory in doubt. After reviewing the finish line photos, Blunk was able to hold off Gibson at the line. Not 24 hours before that, Blunk and Gibson sprinted for second in the short track race, with Blunk again seemingly getting to the line a hair quicker; however, this one was too close to call, and no finish line photo was available.
Regardless, the women at the top of the US field have a good thing going. And between Courtney, Gibson, Blunk, Jenn Jackson, Munro and many other top performers, North America is poised for exciting results in the World Cup events.
Full results for US Pro Cup MTB, Fayetteville p/b Walmart are here: https://my.raceresult.com/groups/5408/
Weather
Here's some inside baseball for you about Saturday's elite women's race cut short because of severe weather. We had all been watching the radar throughout the day and knew rain and lightning threatened the afternoon men's and women's elite races. The women's race started at 2 pm and took place during the worst weather. But the worst of it wasn't so bad. There was minimal rain and dark clouds heading toward the park, but it didn't seem necessarily severe. However, there was also lighting not a mile away, and Centennial Park being on an exposed hilltop, posed real concerns.
Those concerns became a reality as the lightning inched towards the park in the second half of the women's elite race. And this is where the confusion started. A little less than an hour into the race, officials told riders at the first tech zone that they were on their last lap rather than preparing to see three laps to go.
That decision, which I'll touch on, completely changed the strategy of those racing at the front. Instead of settling into the race and preparing for the final laps, everyone had to switch gears and go all in for the finish line. It robbed the athletes and spectators of what was shaping up to be a great battle at the front.
That's not to say that the finish to the women's race wasn't thrilling. How could it not be? It ended in a three-up sprint with Courtney, Blunk and Gibson that Blunk won in a photo finish. But it still left racers and spectators disappointed. A feeling that was not helped by the threatened severe weather never materializing.
However, despite that disappointment, I believe the decision to shorten the race was correct. And it sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to understand the policies and procedures in place, or possibly lacking, in these situations.
Here's what happened. Or at least how it was explained to me by race officials. Threats of lighting were in the forecast all day, and Centennial Park sits unexposed on top of a hill. Not the best place to be when lightning is in the area. In most instances, for better or worse, the race probably would not have been shortened. The UCI has no specific lightning protocol, and the decision to cease racing or shorten a race is at the discretion of the race officials.
In this instance, those officials did not make the decision to shorten the women's elite race. Instead, the medical staff hired for the event moved in and took control. The head of that crew is on staff with the University of Arkansas athletic department and is accustomed to events governed by the NCAA. The NCAA Sports Medicine Handbook has a followed policy, found at Guideline 1E in the NCAA Sports Medicine Handbook. The guideline states that "At a minimum, lightning safety experts strongly recommend that by the time the monitor observes 30 seconds between seeing the lightning flash and hearing its associated thunder or by the time the leading edge of the storm is within six miles of the venue, all individuals should have left the athletics site and be wholly within a safer structure or location." This is the guideline on which the medical staff decided to shorten the race. Lightning was reported on the radar less than a mile from the venue when officials made the call to have racers finish on their current lap.
On Saturday, the US Cup elite XCO events were UCI HC category races held under UCI regulations. The UCI does not have any adverse weather regulations for MTB events. Also, the UCI does not have any policy or regulation for any disciplines for lightning. The only mention of bad weather in the UCI regulations for MTB is regulation 4.1.023, which states that "in the event of bad weather the president of the commissaires' panel may decide to cancel the event after consulting the organiser and, where appointed, the UCI technical delegate."
The closest thing that the UCI has to a severe weather policy is regulation 2.2029bis under Part 2 Road Races. That regulation is the protocol for discussing extreme weather and the riders' safety during events. It refers to Annex B of Part 2 for a discussion on implementing the regulation.
Under this regulation, no adverse weather policy is in place by default. When extreme weather conditions are anticipated, one appointed representative must request a meeting of all appointed representatives. (This part is a bit confusing because in one section, it says the meeting must be requested, and in another, it says the meeting is compulsory if there is a threat of extreme weather. I interpret this to mean if bad weather is likely, the meeting must happen, but someone still must formally request that meeting.)
The extreme weather listed includes freezing rain, snow, strong wind, extreme temperatures, poor visibility, and air pollution. Lightning is not on the list. This list makes sense because most road races are not concentrated in one relatively small area like MTB events, where lightning strikes are more easily tracked.
Annex B, where the nuts and bolts of the policy are laid out, is designed for road races, but I mention it here because it is what USA Cycling uses in National Championships, including MTB and cyclocross, to govern procedures for severe weather.
Although the shortened Fayetteville event was a UCI event, I was also curious about USA Cycling's policy for severe weather and lightning. I was told that "USA Cycling does not have a policy on weather and lightning for non-owned events. We recommend the Event Organizers work with local authorities on establishing a severe weather protocol with stakeholders from their event." As I mentioned above, for USA Cycling-owned events, like national championships, I was told that the national governing body "follow a process [similar] to what the UCI has laid out in Annex B of the road section of their regulations."
After going through all of this, I think that the UCI, USA Cycling and every individual event should have a severe weather policy that includes lightning and that organizers should include that policy in an event's tech guide. Fayetteville's tech guide doesn't contain any weather information because the UCI does not require it.
So why does any of this matter, or am I just nitpicking? I think it matters because, while rare, lightning striking humans is a real threat and, many times, fatal. Just last August, the president of the Balocco confectionary company that sponsored the Giro d'Italia was killed by lightning along with his riding partner while on an MTB ride in Italy.
But this isn't Italy. I get that. So, let's look at Arkansas. According to the National Weather Service, Arkansas has the tenth-highest number of lightning fatalities since recordkeeping started in 1959. There have been 128 deaths and 331 injuries in that time. In the aggregate, that does not seem like a lot. I know the counterargument here is something like, "There are a lot of things that can kill you while mountain biking," and I agree. But this one is preventable, and by not racing in conditions that could be fatal, we remove that one risk from the equation. It would be a tragedy that adversely affected the sport if lightning injured or killed a racer or spectator.
That's not to say that the timing here didn’t stink. Nobody liked it. It robbed the riders and spectators of two or three more laps of a fantastic race. But in the end, I think it was the right call and should be a lesson learned for other MTB events going forward.
I can’t speak for the UCI but the “Bulletin” reader policy states the Bill’s rabbit holes are both permitted and encouraged.
I agree with you on the subject of a lightning protocol, Bill, and agree with the local Fayetteville EMS decision. When an electrical storm is as close as stated, the next strike can indeed be right on you and lightning often travels miles front the point of origin before hitting the ground, or a person. Not worth the risk.