The Superprestige cyclocross series, starting this Sunday, Oct. 12, will be broadcast live at no charge by the Belgium television channel VT4.

The races will be webcast on www.vt4.be. Philippe Maertens will give live commentary.

In Ruddervoorde, the race starts at 5 p.m. (11 a.m. EST) local time. In Diegem the start is at 5:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. EST) All other races start at 3 p.m. (9 a.m. EST), with the broadcast beginning a half hour before the start.

Velonews link

 

And that's great news for us CX fans. And even better news is that it's at a sane hour for us west-coasters.

Here's a trivia question: Who racked up the most Tour De France stage wins for the late, great Mapei squad? And it's not any of: Bartoli, Bettini, Musseuw, Rominger, Freire, or Bugno. If you read the the title, you know the answer. Tom Steels won 9 stages in the tour, and he has always been one of my favorite riders. Yesterday Tom finished 30th in his final race, the Belgian national championship, a race he had won 4 times.

Age and injuries had taken their toll over the past several years, but in the late 90's Steels was the most feared sprinter in the peloton. He won 4 stages in the 1998 TdF (including the Champs Élysées), outsprinting the likes of Cipollini, Zabel, O'Grady, and McEwen. In the 1999 Tour he won another 3 stages, including the infamous Passage du Gois stage, and 2 more in 2000. All the while Steels was also collecting sprint wins in stage races all over Europe. 8 wins in Paris-Nice, 4 in the Ruta del Sol, and various stages in the Tours of Suisse, Belgium, Luxembourg, Wallonne, Mediterranean, Deutchland etc.

Steels wasn't just a pure sprinter either, being Belgian (specifically Flemish), he was excellent on the cobbles. While riding for the Belgian arm of the powerhouse Mapei squad, he won the Het Volk, Dwars Door Vlaanderen and Gent-Wevelgem twice. And he was always the super strong domestique in Paris-Roubaix, going with the early break 3 years in a row (98-00) being instrumental in the team win. For years I had a 2 page Graham Watson photo spread of Steels leading the break out of Arenberg hanging over my desk. It was in Cycle Sport in 2000, if anyone has a copy of it, please let me know!

But his most famous race was not one he won, but the one he got dq'd for. In a heated finale of stage 6 of the 1997 Tour, Steels tangled with Frederic Moncassin and threw a water bottle at him. It was great, I'd never seen anything like that before. In the middle of the sprint, Steels just sat up, grabbed his water bottle and chucked it. Of course he was ejected for it, but he came back to win 9 stages over the next 3 years. I don't know why I loved that move, probably because it's what I've felt like doing in so many races before, but it stuck with me.

So good luck to Tom and family, enjoy your retirement.

From the 1998 Tour

The bottle throwing incident

The early season odds are out on Unibet. MSR & RVV. Get your bets in early

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[editor's note, by chris] See Part 1 below too.

Part 2 - the races

The UCI rates and give points for each sanctioned cyclocross events with a World Cup, C1, or C2 classification. There are about 10 World Cup events each year, there was definite interest in having a World Cup event in the US this year, but the logistics couldn't get finalized. Maybe next year. Usually even the largest USA races are rated C2, but the Supercross #1 in New York got a C1 rating. Erwin Vervecken came to the USA and won that race. The UCI points not only determine the World Cup series winner, but also your critical start position at the World Championship race. Earlier this year a few European pros were racing in the USA to "cherry pick" a few precious points.

Superprestige is an series of C1 races in Belgium and the Netherlands. They are a series in themselves and wildly popular among the locals. Sven Nys owns this series, winning all 8 races last year and the series 7 out of the last 9 years. The website is http://www.superprestigecyclocross.com/

The Gazet van Antwerpen (GVA) are a series of C1 races held near Antwerp. Similar to Superprestige, this is a 8 race series. When looking at the race listings these are harder to pick out because the race name have unique names like: Jaarmarktcross, GP Sven Nys, or Krawatencross. But this is also a highly coveted trophy to win. Nys also won this series last year, but not quite in the dominant fashion as Superprestige.

And there is the World Championship. The cyclocross world championship is probably the most coveted of all titles. Unlike its road race counterpart, everyone is on good form after a full season of racing. And also unlike the road race, which can favor specialists depending on parcours, the cyclocross champion almost always goes to the strongest rider.

For the past 10 years, it's been (almost) all Belgium, except for the controversial 2000 race. Richard Groenendaal (Ned) was out in front, being chased by Mario de Clerq and Sven Nys, both Belgians. Nys refused to help de Clerq chase down his Rabobank team captain, and Groenendaal went on to win. Nys was harshly criticized in the Belgian media, but eventually all was forgotten. Despite being nearly unbeatable during the season, Nys has had some forgettable Worlds even though the Belgian team has been so utterly dominant. Their basic technique is to get to the front and run a virtual team time trial until everyone else dropped. Here is a perfect picture of the machine in action.

There really hasn't been a challenge to recent Belgium superiority, but last year Jonathan Page was just 1 Vervecken bobble away from taking it all.

Here are the results from last season

World Cup
---------
UCI World Cup, Aigle (Swi) - Nys, Wellens, Vervecken
UCI World Cup, Kalmthout (Bel) - Nys, Mourey, Vervecken
UCI World Cup, Tabor (Cze) - Simunek, Wellens, Vervecken
UCI World Cup, Treviso (Ita) - Mourey, Nys, Vervecken
UCI World Cup, Pijnacker (Ned) - Nys, Mourey, de Knegt
UCI World Cup, Koksijde (Bel) - Nys, Wellens, Vanthourenhout
UCI World Cup, Igorre (Spa) - Nys, Wellens, Vantornout
UCI World Cup, Milan (Ita) - Wellens, Nys, Vanthourenhout
UCI World Cup, Hofstade (Bel) - Vervecken, Dlask, Al
UCI World Cup, Nommay (Fra) - Nys, Wellens, de Knegt
UCI World Cup, Hoogerheide(Ned) - Nys, Dlask, Vervecken

Superprestige
-------------
Ruddervoorde (Bel) - Nys, Vanthourenhout, Wellens
Sint-Michielsgestel (Ned) - Nys, Pauwels, Groenendaal
Asper-Gavere (Bel) - Nys, Vervecken, Gadret
Gieten (Ned) - Nys, de Knegt, Vantornout
Bollekescross, Hamme-Zogge (Bel) - Nys, Wellens, Vervecken
Diegem (Bel) - Nys, Wellens, Pauwels
Hoogstraten (Bel) - Nys, Groendaal, De Knegt
Vorselaar (Bel) - Nys, Vantornout, Vervecken

GVA Gazet van Antwerpen Trophy
---------------------------
Koppenberg (GP Willy Naessens) - Nys, Groendaal, Gadret
Niel (Jaarmarktcross) - Wellens, Groendaal, Nys
Essen (GP Rouwmoer) - Nys, Wellens, De Knegt
Loenhout (Azencross) - Albert, Nys, Vervecken
Baal (GP Sven Nys) - Nys, Boom, Albert
Lille (Krawatencross) - Nys, Groendaal, De Knegt
Oostmalle (Int. Sluitingsprijs) - Albert, Nys, Page

Worlds Championship
--------------------
World Championship, Hooglede-Gits, (Bel) Vervecken, Page, Franzoi

[editor's note, by chris] This is gold... GOLD! Thank you Zegs!

A quick and dirty european pro cyclocross primer. Part 1: Teams and riders.

Rabobank: The first name you need to know is Sven Nys. He is probably the most dominant cyclocross racer of all time, and at age 31, not out of his prime yet. Over 150 cyclocross wins including: 2005 World Champion, 4 time Belgian champion, 7 time superprestige series winner, and 4 GVA trophies. He's been seen occasionally racing Paris-Roubaix for the Rabobank road team. The second name you need to know is Lars Boom. The 21 year old is the current World Espoirs Champion and Dutch National Champion after being the Dutch espoirs champ the previous 3 years and the junior champion the 3 years before that. And of course he was the 2003 Junior World Champ as well. Nys has even tabbed Boom (along with Niels Albert) as one of the riders he fears this year. Other riders: Gerben De Knegt, Bart Aernouts

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Has anyone taken note of Philippe Gilbert's season? Nothing spectacular, but once he started in March, he hasn't stopped. Good, but not great results, but he has raced all of the big races with just a break in May. Now I looked at the start list for Paris Tours and he's on it, and he'll probably be on the line for Lombardia as well. How many riders can start and finish MSR, the cobbled classics, the Ardennes and 2 grand tours in a year. It's Zabel-esque. Has anyone else had a year like this?

3/3 Het Volk - 11
3/11-18 Paris Nice - 50
3/24 Milan San Remo - 21
3/31 E3 Prijs Vlaanderen - 7
4/1 De Brabantse Pijl - La Flèche Brabançonne - DNF
4/8 Ronde van Vlaanderen - 25
4/11 Gent - Wevelgem  - 45
4/15 Paris - Roubaix - 52
4/25 La Flèche Wallonne - 19
4/29 Liège - Bastogne - Liège - 16
6/10-17 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré - 44
7/7-29 Tour De France - 14 stages DNF
8/4 Classica San Sebastian - 84
8/19 Vattenfall Cyclassics - 80
9/1-23 Vuelta A Espana - 69
9/30 UCI World Championships - 8
10/11 Paris-Bourges - 13
10/14 Paris Tours

I found a greasemonkey script that I modified for my VDS teams.
It allows me to see my team highlighted on the cyclingnews
start lists and results page. My Giro team is highlighted in
pink, while my regular VDS team is in black and red.
Here's is a screenshot of the start list (click on for a larger view):

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