November 25/06 6:10 am - CC Awards Update, 'Cross in the NY Times, Birthday Greetings

Posted by Editor on 11/25/06
 

2006 Canadian Cyclist of the Year Awards

The voting has been underway for just over 24 hours in the 10th annual CC Awards, and already we have hundreds of votes cast for the nominees. In the Women's category, Marie-Helene Premont took an early lead, but Alex Wrubleski has been steadily chipping away at it. Similarly, Ryder Hesjedal is leading the Men's standings, but this race is quite close, with Max Plaxton right behind. Premont leads the Individual Performance standings for her Mont Ste Anne win, but Plaxton's Pan Am Championship victory, and Hesjedal's 4th place in the ProTour Volta a Catalunya are also picking up lots of votes. These are early days yet in the voting, and we have seen riders come from behind in before to take an award that appeared to be locked up.

Last year we changed the way votes are tallied, to reflect the fact that it can be difficult to select just one athlete to vote for. Instead, you can now rank your preferences, with the top ranked rider or performance receiving 5 points, the second receiving 4 points, etc. For the Individual Performance Award you can assign the same number of points to more than one choice. The athlete (and performance) receiving the highest average "grade" wins.

Voting will be open until Noon EST on December 11th, with the winner announced shortly thereafter. Cast your vote Here.


'Cross Makes the NY Times

Nationals organizer Normon Thibault has fired us a link to an article about the growing interest in cyclo-cross - it includes a photo of his significant other, Wendy Simms, racing at the USGP race in Portland, Oregon. The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/sports/othersports/25outdoors.html?_r=2&ref=sports&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.


Birthday Greetings To...

Retired Olympian Manon Jutras (today), Josh Hall (23rd), Eron Chorney (22nd), Joelle Numanville (20th) and few other belated greetings:

former World Champion Tanya Dubnicoff (7th)
Retired mountain biker Bill Hurley (8th)
Olympian and Worlds medalist Linda Jackson (13th)