The US Cyclo-cross team stunned the world by taking three silver medals at the world championships...
Katie Compton (Image credit: Mark Legg)
The US Cyclo-cross team stunned the world by taking three silver medals at the world championships this year. While remarkable, the medals won in this year's 'cross worlds weren't the first big results for the US in cyclo-cross. In 1999, Matthew Kelly won the gold in the junior men's race and Tim Johnson took bronze in the Espoirs. The next year Walker Ferguson took silver in the juniors, and the women have been competitive for years - Alison Dunlap and Ann Knapp scored top ten finishes for several years. Does this year's haul signal a new era in American cyclo-cross? Racer and writer, Peter Hymas, explores the potential for a US 'cross explosion.
While the state of American professional cycling was arguably at its absolute nadir in the years following World War II, Frank Kramer, one of the sport's founding champions opined on what it would take to return the sport to its former state of grandeur. And what was Kramer's reply?
"Only one good American rider."
Approximately 2 weeks ago, in an unprecedented performance at Belgium's Hooglede-Gits hosted World Cyclocross Championships, not one, not two, but three good American riders earned a hat-trick of silver medals: Danny Summerhill, Katie Compton, and, perhaps most astonishingly, Jonathan Page.
