March 21/07 1:15 am - Nanaimo Withdraws Bid to Host 2007 National Cyclocross Championships

Posted by Editoress on 03/21/07
 

Nanaimo Withdraws Bid to Host 2007 National Cyclocross Championships
Courtesy Multi-Sport Promotions

Multi-Sport Promotions, host of the 2006 National Cyclocross championships in Nanaimo, B.C., has withdrawn its bid to host the 2007 championships. The Organizers cite growing and mounting challenges in communication with the Canadian Cycling Association (CCA), constant delays in 2006 and continuing delays in 2007 as the main reasons for the withdrawal.

In November of 2006, after hosting a very successful National CX Championships, Multi-Sport Promotions sent the CCA a list of concerns stemming from the hosting of the 2006 event. In the hope that the 2007 event and CCA would benefit from constructive communication they outlined concerns including hidden costs, lack of communication leading up to the event, delays in receiving important communications from CCA, a dictated registration process that was not user/rider friendly, an increase in officials for the National Championships over the past 3 years from 3 to 6, a more than 300% increase in budget for officials for the event as well as other issues. Upon receiving this communication Multi-Sport Promotions were told by other members of the CCA that they would review their concerns and get back to them after an upcoming meeting. That meeting was over three and a half months ago and Multi-Sport Promotions is still waiting to hear back on these concerns.

Multi-Sport Promotions reports receiving consistent and considerable praise from the riders, the City of Nanaimo, the officials, spectators and volunteers about the 2006 Championships. Despite having the second highest turn out for a CX Championships (Ontario in 2005 had slightly higher) the 2006 Championships lost money because of costs and fees that were never outlined or communicated.

Spokesperson and race director, Normon Thibault, says that their bid for hosting the 2007 Championships was submitted before the deadline at the end of October of 2005. "In November of 2006 before we hosted the 2006 National Champs we were told by a CCA representative that we had the Championships again for 2007 as there were no other applications," reports Thibault. "In a memo on many of the news services that listed the 2007 Canadian Cycling Championships, Nanaimo was listed for the 2007 CX Champs. However in conversations last week with the CCA suddenly this was not necessarily the case and they were waiting to do a "review" of the 2006 championship." According to Thibault, "It is ridiculous that they are doing a review more than 4 months after our event and with only 8 months to go until the next one should be hosted."

Says Thibault, "It is now 17 months after the 2007 bids had to be submitted we are still waiting to hear who is hosting this event. How are we supposed to get sponsors for our event when most companies' budgets have already been done months ago? We had a title sponsor lined up for the National Championships to help keep the event in the black and the entry fees reasonable but the CCA is still dragging their heals on this so they have put their money elsewhere.....out of the sport of cycling. We simply cannot host an event in such an unprofessional administrative environment. We were proud to host in 2006 and would have loved to do so again but no business model can survive in the context of lack of communication between partners, undisclosed fees and ongoing uncertainty. This is an incredibly unfortunate, upsetting situation we are being forced into and we think it is the riders that will ultimately continue to suffer".

Multi-Sport Promotions will continue to host the Vancouver Island Cyclocross Series which ran in 2006 for the first year.

www.island-multi-sports.com

Multi-Sport Promotions has organized and hosted events for the past 14 years. Among their events they have hosted 2 National Triathlon Championships, 6 Provincial Triathlon Championships, 1 CX BC Cup Championship, 11 New Balance Half Iron Triathlons, 2 road duathlons, 2 off road duathlons, mountain bike races, the first ever CX Race on Vancouver Island, the first Island CX series as well as countless running races.