It’s another action packed weekend of UCI racing in both North America and Europe. In North America, Charm City Cross in Baltimore, MD offers a pair of UCI C2 races. 1,700 miles west, the US Open of Cyclocross in Boulder, CO also offers a pair of C2 races.
In Europe all eyes will be on the first round of the Superprestige in Gieten, Netherlands. Taking place on Sunday, it is the only C1 on the calendar this weekend. Also on Sunday is the GP Trnava (Slovakia) and the Internationales Radquer Steinmaur in Switzerland. Finally, the Coupe de France Cyclo-cross series kicks off Sunday in La Meziere.
Circling back to Saturday, there are three UCI races. The Estonian National Championships take place in Suure-Jaani. The Toi Toi Cup continues in Holé Vrchy. Finally there’s another round of the Ethias Cross series in Kruibeke. The start list looks like all the top riders will be in action, so it will be a great race to watch.
Our races to predict
While we would love to predict the podium of every race this weekend, start-lists are often hard to come by, so it would be a challenge. One weekend in the future we will give it a shot. We promise. For this weekend we are going to predict two races. We are going to go for Charm City Cross on Saturday. Our other prediction will be for the Superprestige race in Gieten.
Charm City Cross (Saturday)
Elite Men
US National Champion Stephen Hyde returns to racing after a weekend off following the World Cup races. Last weekends winners, Curtis White and Kerry Werner are also in action. Gage Hecht and Lance Haidet both were on the podium last weekend, but the will be in Boulder this weekend. That opens the door for others to land on the podium.. All in all it promise to be a great race amongst North America’s top riders.
- Curtis White
- Stephen Hyde
- Kerry Werner
Elite Women
All of the women who landed on the podium last weekend in Arkansa are not racing Charm City Cross. As a result, it leaves the door wide open for some other riders to grab a spot on the podium and pick up some UCI points. Without much head to head racing to go on, these picks are a real shot in the dark.
- Rebecca Fahringer
- Emily Werner
- Caroline Nolan
Superprestige Gieten
Elite Men
Last weekend all of the top riders raced in Meulebeke. Michael Vanthourenhout came out on top ahead of Eli Iserbyt and Toon Aerts. Iserbyt had a nasty crash that definitely cost him the top spot. The only rider in this race that finished on the podium in Gieten was Toon Aerts. Aerts finished third behind Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert. We expect the same heads of state to be at the front as in Meulebeke. However, we do expect one little surprise.
- Eli Iserbyt
- Toon Aerts
- Daan Soete
Elite Women
Last weekend the Dutch dominated the elite women’s races. Interestingly, the Dutch dominated Gieten last year as well. Annemarie Worst took the top spot while Marianne Vos was second. In third place was the Italian Alice Arzuffi. All in all, the Dutch took five of the top-ten spots last year. As with the men, we expect last weekends top riders to be at the front again.
- Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado
- Sanne Cant
- Inge van der Heijden
