Michael van den Ham (Garneau Easton) successfully defended his Elite men's title at the Canadian Cyclo-cross Championships on Saturday, in Peterborough, Ontario, holding off a late race surge by five-time champion Geoff Kabush (Yeti Maxxis Shimano).
After snow and rain the previous day, riders woke to sun and bitterly cold winds on race day, taking the windchill value to -8C, with blowing snow squalls thrown in for good measure.
The 2015 national champion Raphael Gagne (Silverback-OMX) had his usual fast start to get the holeshot, with van den Ham chasing along with Kabush and Marc-Andre Fortier (Pivot-OTE). Van den Ham got a gap on the other two chasers to get by Gagne first, with the other two also passing the early leader. Kabush was steadily closing on van den Ham through the final laps, but couldn't quite manage to close the gap, finishing six seconds back, with Fortier taking the bronze medal.
"The track was changing all the time," said van den Ham. "The sun would come out and it would start to thaw, and then it would get cloudy and start to freeze again ... so the conditions were changing throughout the day. All you could do was show up, race the course and see what happens. I knew Raph [Gagne] would have a fast start, but I was pretty confident I could bring him back. I think it played to my advantage because Geoff [Kabush] is a fast finisher, so getting that gap was key to holding him off at the end. It stung a bit [losing the Pan Am title last weekend], so I'm very happy to have pulled this off."
Full Results
| # | Rider Name (Country) Team | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Van Den Ham (Can) Garneau-Easton p/b Transitions Lifecare | 0:59:56 | |
| 2 | Geoff Kabush (Can) | 0:00:06 | |
| 3 | Marc Andre Fortier (Can) | 0:01:49 | |
| 4 | Raphael Gagne (Can) | 0:02:37 | |
| 5 | Peter Disera (Can) | 0:03:50 | |
| 6 | Craig Richey (Can) Garneau-Easton P/B Transitions Lifecare | ||
| 7 | Andrew L'Esperance (Can) | 0:04:02 | |
| 8 | Trevor O'Donnell (Can) | 0:05:08 | |
| 9 | Derrick St John (Can) | 0:05:24 | |
| 10 | Marc Andre Daigle (Can) | 0:05:34 | |
| 11 | Isaac Niles (Can) | 0:05:42 | |
| 12 | David Yexley (GBr) | 0:05:48 | |
| 13 | Osmond Bakker (Can) | 0:06:50 | |
| 14 | Mathieu Belanger Barrette (Can) | 0:07:35 | |
| 15 | Christian Ricci (Can) | ||
| 16 | Edward Walsh (Can) | ||
| 17 | Parker Bloom (Can) | ||
| 18 | Nathan Chown (Can) | ||
| 19 | Stephen Kirby (Can) | ||
| 20 | Eric Jeanotte (Can) | ||
| 21 | James Fedosov (Can) | ||
| 22 | Brenton Miller (Can) | ||
| 23 | Cameron Jette (Can) | ||
| 24 | Christopher Mitchell (Can) | ||
| 25 | Robert Meneguzzi (Can) | ||
| 26 | Alex Lefebvre (Can) | ||
| 27 | David Maltais (Can) | ||
| 28 | Brendan Matheson (Can) | ||
| 29 | Travis Samuel (Can) | ||
| 30 | Ben Andrew (Can) | ||
| 31 | Peter Morse (Can) | ||
| 32 | Andrew Bray (Can) | ||
| 33 | Mitch Harris (Can) | ||
| 34 | Eric Spinney (Can) | ||
| 35 | Joel Anderson (Can) | ||
| 36 | William Blackburn (Can) | ||
| 37 | Terry Mckall (Can) | ||
| 38 | Caelum Wishart (Can) | ||
| 39 | Miles Betteridge (Can) | ||
| 40 | Ryan Kent (Can) | ||
| 41 | Justin Minicola (Can) | ||
| 42 | Mark Lancia (Can) | ||
| DNF | Anton Varabei (Can) | ||
| DNS | Peter Glassford (Can) |