Did you know that the 2022 Cyclocross Worlds were held in Fayetteville Arkansas a couple of weekends ago? Living in the mountains and currently focused on all things snow, I completely missed it until surfing the interweb this past weekend.
Not that it would have mattered much had I known. It’s not like I was going to drive to all the way to Arkansas to watch a bike race, even a world championship. And this being the U.S. of A. there’s no chance of getting TV coverage of any sport that doesn’t involve a ball of some kind, the Olympics notwithstanding.
Most amazing, the whole shindig was sponsored by Walmart. Walmart, best known for low prices, interesting clientele and destroying local retail in small towns all over the country. Not a corporation you associate with bike racing, certainly not for sponsoring what is generally considered a fringe sport in a slightly larger fringe sport. But it is Arkansas, so there you go.
From what I can tell from the reporting, the course looked really cool. Fast and flowy, dry and dusty, what I’d call Texas-style cyclocross. And look at the length of that stair run-up!
In the elite woman’s race Marianne Vos, the hardest hammer in the universe, broke away with her fellow country woman Lucinda Brand and after a few laps of cat and mouse, took her eighth world championship in a two-up sprint finish.
In the elite men’s race, Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock held off an onslaught of early Belgian attacks to finish far enough ahead for his own superman impression on the line.
Very cool.
Back in my racing days I did more cyclocross than any other type of racing. Even though I discovered cyclocross after mountain and road, it quickly became my favorite. There’s just something particularly fun about ‘cross. Going out and suffering for an hour in your own race and then drinking beer and heckling your friends during their race. It’s just a great atmosphere. I made a lot of friends and have a lot of memories from racing cyclocross over the years in Texas. Watching these videos and hearing the cow bells brought back all those good feelings.
Complete race videos for those of you as far out of the loop as me:
But did you ever do a superman finish… Me neither 😂😂
Usually at the end of a cross race I was just happy if I wasn’t puking!