Garrigan secures Canadian cyclo-cross title

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Mike Garrigan (van Dessel) dashed the hopes of Geoff Kabush (Scott-3Rox) to win a sixth Canadian Elite Men’s Cyclo-cross title in Winnipeg.

The race saw Garrigan get his patented fast start, opening a gap on a chase group containing Kabush, last year's Under-23 champion Michael van den Ham (Trek Red Truck) and Evan McNeely (Norco Factory). Aaron Schooler (Focus CX Team), one of the pre-race favourites, crashed out of medal contention on the first lap, but would recover to take fourth.

Garrigan has often had strong starts before fading in the latter stages of the race, but the 2007 national champion, racing a day after his birthday, did not fade on this day. His lead reached a maximum of 20 seconds as Kabush and van den Ham dropped McNeely in their constant chase to reel him in.

The lead began to drop in the final three laps and was under ten seconds with a lap to go. Kabush, who had let van den Ham do a lot of the work came to the front on the final lap and the gap went down to seven seconds, and then five, but the chasers had left it too late or didn't have enough in the tank, and Garrigan was able to cruise across the line two seconds clear of Kabush, with van den Ham taking third.

"I tricked them," joked Garrigan, "I've had two years of fast starts and then fading! A couple of times I was really hurting, and if I didn't have the experience that I have racing and feeling pain, then they probably would have caught me. But I could see them on some parts of the course and how close they were, and I figured I'd have enough snap at the end. It feels great to get the title back; I love 'Cross and after winning Nationals I'm going to do my best to represent the Jersey."

A pair of local Manitoba riders took the other titles, with Danick Vandale (Team Manitoba) winning the Under-23 men and Oliver Evans (Team Manitoba) the Junior men.

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