Frattini dominates Toronto Cross

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Davide Frattini (Hudz-Subaru) captured his third UCI win of the season at the first round of the Toronto Cyclo-cross weekend on Saturday. The Italian opened up a comfortable lead on the first lap of the Elite men’s 60-minute race and crossed the finish line nearly 30 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor. A pair of Canadians, Derrick St-John (Garneau Club Chaussures-Ogilvy) and Aaron Schooler (H&R Block) round out the podium in second and third place respectively.

“It’s very nice to have three UCI wins early in the season,” Frattini said. “I won three last year so I hope I can add a few more to my resume before my season is over. I didn’t want to jump as early as I did but I wanted to take the sand pit first. I thought the lines from the previous race were still there but the organizers raked it. When I came out of the sand I had a few bike lengths on the group and decided I should just keep going.”

The Toronto Cyclo-cross C2 double header weekend kicked off on Saturday at the Centennial Park in Etobicoke. The venue offers spacious park grounds and a man-made hill used as a local ski area during the winter months. This year’s course offered the riders an uphill barriers, technical and off camber hillside, wooded trails, kidney shaped berms and a sand pit.

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Frattini took the hole shot onto the grass but was quickly passed by Schooler who remained in the lead for nearly the full opening lap. “It’s rare that I go out and set the pace because I usually like to stay with in my bounds for the first half,” Schooler said. “I tried to do my own thing and ended up dying a bit.”

Frattini jumped to the front of the field to lead the long line of crossers the first time through the sand pit. He exited the sand with a several second gap and gained a few more seconds after sprinting across the pavement for the start of the second lap. His lead grew from 15 to 25 seconds as a result of strong efforts over the uphill barriers and through the technical sections on laps three, four and five.

“I noticed that the other riders couldn’t close the gap so I kept going from there,” Frattini said. “The first few laps I wanted to get a good amount of time ahead of the group to control my lead. After that, I tried to just pace my self because I have to race tomorrow too. It was hard because the course was pretty fast and a lot of sections were headwind so it wasn’t that easy to stay solo with three or four guys chasing.”

St-John’s race was marred with mechanicals that began with a crash on the second lap followed by a bike change and getting caught up in the course tape. He was flushed to fourth position chasing second and third place duo Schooler and Evan McNeely (EMD Serono-Specialized), a junior mountain biker.

“I was pushing the limits and that is when I slipped out and panicked a little bit,” St-John said. “I knew Davide was going to be the guy to
watch. When you get two crashes and caught up in the tape you just keep pushing and eventually it worked out for a podium. I’m happy with today considering the luck that I had.”

In the closing laps, Schooler gained time on McNeely and looked to be en route for a second place finish until St-John, known as the pitbull of cyclo-cross, caught and passed both rider with two laps to go. Schooler hung on for third place ahead of Andrew Watson (Norco Factory Team) who caught and passed McNeely for fourth place.

“I was right behind St-John when he had all his mishap today,” Schooler said. “But he has a lot of speed so he can come back pretty fast. It looked like he was hurting after those crashes but he obviously came back in the end.”