July 8/00 11:46 am - Report from Canmore World Cup

Posted by Editor on 07/8/00
 

It is the day before the Canmore World Cup, and things are pretty quiet at the Nordic Centre. Saw Chrissy Redden, Melanie Dorion, Melanie McQuaid and a few others just back from a training ride, Street Crit winner Andreas Hestler (his third victory of the season), and world champion Miguel Martinez - still waiting for his bike, a week after Mont Ste Anne!

Martinez's Full Dynamix, a tiny jewel of 20 pounds, never made it to Mont Ste Anne, so he rode on a Devinci team bike. Now in Canmore, his replacement bike is stalled in Calgary, an hour from the race site. Martinez will not be riding a Devinci again. "One was too big, the other too small", said a Devinci spokesperson. Martinez was busy cadging pedals off Devinci (Time Atac's), and is rumoured to be using a Trek if his bike doesn't show up. However, the other rumour is that he won't ride if his bike doesn't show up. Supposedly, the mayor of Calgary and the President of UPS have both stepped in to make sure his bike shows up. I guess we will know tomorrow...

The course is basically the same as last year, with two notable modifications. The notorious downhill, root-infested Chute is now quite tame, after the removal of a bunch of stumps that were embedded in the ground. "Everyone is riding it", said Hestler. Also, the Devonian Gulch - a dropoff that many riders had trouble with - is more technical, since the large number of riders through in the past few days has worn it down to a rut.

There has been no rain for the past few days, and the course is quite dry and very fast, with predictions of sub-20 minute laps for the men. However, just as we were leaving this evening, rain was moving in, so the situation could be completely different by the morning. Hopefully, the 6" of snow and hail visited upon Bragg Creek earlier in the week was an aberation that will not be repeated at Canmore tomorrow.

The women start at 10:30 am (Mountain) for a start loop and 4 full laps, and the men at 1:30 pm (contrary to published reports on the event website...) for a start loop, a short lap and 5 full laps. We will be on site earlier in the morning to catch the tail end of the Junior races, and to start providing our lap-by-lap coverage.

Miguel has been "added" to the Ford-Devinci team...