Nicholas Smith: The youngest Australian rider ever to compete at the Cyclo Cross World Championships looks back on his time in Belgium and the Netherlands.
After finishing fourth at the inaugural Australian National Championship Cyclo cross held in Melbourne, Nicholas Smith qualified for the World Championships for U19 riders in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands. After extensive support from the local community through raffle tickets, local rides on the Bundanoon mountain bike trails and donations, Nicholas managed to make the trip trip over to Europe.
The first shock came right after walking off the plane in Belgium with temperates 40 degrees lower then back home in Australia. Luckily Nick came well prepared with a bag full of thermals and wool riding socks, a perfect choice for riding conditions in wintery Europe where cyclo cross riders have to face mud, snow and ice nearly every weekend. From the airport we headed to Bornem, Nick’s home for the next to weeks and only 40 minutes away from nearly every cyclo cross event he competed at.
On the first day, Nick rode out to the nearby town of Kruibeke where he got his first taste of European cyclo cross racing. Just after looking at the course, the decision was made that racing himself was not an option. The rain from the last weeks had turned the course into a mud-fest and riders were forced to run the majority of the lap. Nick decided to leave that up to the others, study the competition and suss out what he would get himself into over the weekends to come.
Nick traveled to Belgium with Roeland Suys, a Belgian expatriate living in Melbourne. Together they stayed at his parent’s place in Belgium rather then having to base themselves from a hotel. This much more comfortable environment was perfect for a relaxed build up to the biggest race of the year and for Nick to have a taste of what makes all the culinary treats Belgium has to offer.
The weekend before the World Championships, Nick competed in two cyclo cross races. The first was a club race around Ghent on an extremely muddy course built on a corn field. Because it was only Nick’s first race in this series, he had to start from the last row but by cleverly avoiding a few crashed in the first corner, he soon moved up to the middle of the field. Much to the surprise of many of the Belgian riders, Nick kept on moving up and was soon up there in the top three. Nick kept the pace high all through the race and was only beaten by a French rider as he crossed the finish in second position.
The next day Nick and his Australian team mates headed over the the final race of the Flemish Cyclo Cross cup, a race where many of the top junior riders lined up at the start in their final preparation for the World Championships. The course was a perfect example for what a cyclo cross race should be, a mixture of grass, mud, a hilly section and two creek crossings. Once again starting from the last row, it took Nick a while to really get into the right rhythm and it wasn’t until the third lap that he started moving up in the field to eventually take 39th place.
But it wasn’t all about cyclo cross these two weeks, together with the rest of the Australian delegation Nick visited the nearby city of Antwerp to soak up a bit of Belgian culture. The city dates back to Roman times and buildings are centuries old, surviving the horror of the two World Wars that destroyed much of Europe. They visited cathedrals, castles and indulged in chocolate, Belgian beers (well, hot chocolate for Nick) and fries with Flemish beef stew.
Nicholas Smith at the CX Worlds in Hoogerheide. Photo: Frank Suys
On Friday, things got real with Nick’s first practice laps on the world championships course. Together with Under 23 rider Tom Chapman and Elite Women rider Melissa Anset, Nick rode on the course for over two hours memorising it and finding the best lines for Saturday’s race. Together with Roeland Suys in the function of Cycling Australia’s Technical Director and Greg Meyland who did an excellent job as Australia’s National Team Manager, Nick also attended to the International Cycling Union’s pre-race meeting to get an understanding of the scale of and event of such calibre.
Saturday the first of February at 11am, the moment Nick had been working to for the last few months was finally there. Together with the same crew that had successfully supported Australia’s sole cyclo cross representative Lewis Rattray over the last two season, Nick prepared for the start while cheered on by a crowd of Belgian and Dutch fans. Unfortunately things already went wrong in the first hundred meters of the race, a crash by one of the riders on the front caused a huge pile up of riders and bikes. Nick managed to avoid the fallen riders but a German rider wasn’t as attentive and rode into the back of Nick’s bike. He made it to the pit area with a buckled rear wheel but lost almost half a minute in the aftermath of the crash. Many of the other riders involved in the crashed pulled out but Nick kept on going hard, showing he was in great shape and he wasn’t going to give up that easy. But the bad luck wasn’t over yet as he crashed two more times on the treacherous muddy sections. Rainfall all during the night had made every corner extremely slippery. Nick buckled his front wheel after hitting the barriers after the fly-over seriously reducing the braking power. Unable to slow down on one of the steeper drops, he missed a corner and took a tumble over the barriers. Despite all this, he still rode very strong lap times and crossed the finish in 50th place.
When thinking back, Nick will always remember the massive support he got from the cheering crowd and from his Australian team mate who took the time before or after their own races to cheer on each other. Also big thanks to mechanics Jeroen Suys and Simon Chapman, soigneurs Frank Suys and Ellen Gevers, team manager Greg Meyland and the Belgian couple Greet and Willy who provided the team with a camper to stay warm before the race. It was an amazing experience for Nick to compete at the highest level and it will definitely make a huge difference in his further career as a cyclo cross racer.