Jonathan Page peaking at right time

Jonathan Page (Planet Bike) powered to an eighth place finish today at the ninth and final round of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup in Hoogerheide, The Netherlands, the second top-10 World Cup finish of the season for the American. The 33-year-old Page made the lead group and is pleased with his form one week prior to the world championships in Tabor, Czech Republic on January 31.

"I spent a lot of time in being ready for these two weeks and so far it's paying off," Page told Cyclingnews. "It was a difficult course today. Luckily I was in front at the start and ended up riding at the ribbon of comfortable and uncomfortable in that lead group."

"I switched bikes together with Vervecken to get rid of the mud and lost some time but that didn't make the difference today."

Next week the world championship course promises to be icy and thus very slippery, something that suits the three-time US champion. "Normally it's great for me. The [2005] world championships in Sankt-Wendel had a similar course and that would have been the start of the JP-special but I flatted out of the front group. Anything is possible," Page said.

The European-based Page is the first North American to stand on the elite men's cyclo-cross world championship podium, after he claimed the silver medal at the 2007 cyclo-cross Worlds in Hooglede-Gits, Belgium.