Sport Men crowd1

The Jim Horner Grand Prix of Cyclo-cross was my first Edmonton race of the season, and it went well. Unlike last year we had clear skies with no Air Quality warnings so all the races happened.

Being in Novice Men, I had an early start while the grass was still dewy and wet. The course opened with a bunch of twisty turns including an uphill off-camber thing (see the picture above of the Sport Men tackling it). I did that switchback okay in practice, but on the opening lap I totally wiped out, delaying a bunch of people behind me. Once that was out of the way though, I had a good race. I was following some people and eventually passed them. I couldn’t quite get in touch with the leaders of the race but I had a pretty good run.

Expert Men Runup2

I then spent the rest of the day hanging out at the bike races, which was fun. I got some decent pictures and chatted a bunch with different racers, which made me feel a little bit like a part of the ‘cross community.

results

Podia

Open Women

  1. Christiane BILODEAU3
  2. Shantel KOENIG
  3. Susanne MCARTHUR

Open Men

  1. Eric BERG4
  2. Ben MORIN
  3. Sean GERMAINE

Expert Men

  1. Jared GERVAIS
  2. Kurt MCGRATH5
  3. Randy PERRY

Sport Women

  1. Anna EGGERS
  2. Emily YOUNG
  3. Sarah MCMASTER6

Sport Men

  1. Ryan ARYCHUK
  2. Caleb WRIGHT
  3. Riley OOSTERHOF

Novice Men

  1. Jett FENTON
  2. Aiden SANDMAIER
  3. Jamie MOORS

my results

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  1. Sport Men crowd - Photo by me ↩︎

  2. Expert Men Runup - Photo by me ↩︎

  3. First place in 2023. ↩︎

  4. Provincial CX Champion wearing the jersey and everything. Apparently he was a bit of a surprise entry as he’s been racing elsewhere in Canada. ↩︎

  5. Kurt spent a big chunk of the race in the top 5, but made a late move for second, which was pretty exciting to watch. ↩︎

  6. I think I heard Sarah say at the end of the race that this was her first podium in a ‘cross race. Nice! ↩︎