Aged 16 to 21, the cyclo-cross riders benefitted from a week of practical and theory sessions led by British coach Ed Collins and Italian international athlete Eva Lechner, both members of the UCI Cyclo-cross Commission. The athletes came from Austria, Brazil, Great Britain, Denmark, Iceland, Iran, Israel, Italy and Sweden.
With a typical day consisting of technical skill sessions in the morning followed by a road ride and/or more skills in the afternoon and evening classroom sessions, the athletes were able to cover the fundamental elements necessary to confront an international field.
Ed Collins explains: “We coached them according to a skills matrix which included technical elements such as starts, dismounting and mounting, running with the bike, cornering and bunny hops. The riders became more confident and faster as the week went on. We organised a team relay race on Friday, which was testament to their progression. All the riders competed and we had some great close racing.”
The coach underlined that the participants particularly appreciated having input from Eva Lechner: “Lots of athletes took the opportunity to talk to Eva individually, and with her vast racing experience, she provided some great insights at the evening sessions which covered race planning, preparation, what to do on race day and race analysis.”
While some of the athletes had already participated in cyclo-cross internationally, others were relatively new to the discipline. This was the case of UCI World Cycling Centre mountain bike trainee Gabi Pereira Ferolla, a first-year Junior (17) from Brazil: “I participated because I want to improve technically, and since I’m a mountain bike athlete the skills I’ve learned can be 100% applied to my daily training and to races,” she explained.
“I actually didn’t know much about cyclo-cross apart from having watched a few races on TV, so the camp was challenging. It was my first time using that kind of bike on terrain full of obstacles. I enjoyed getting to know this discipline in such a such good environment, learning, and doing the thing that I love the most, riding my bike!”
The cyclo-cross camp has been organised at the UCI WCC since 2012 but had to be cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Former camp participants have gone on to fare very well internationally, not least Marie Schreiber (19), who in her first year in the Under-23 category was crowned U23 National Champion of Luxembourg in January this year, three weeks before claiming 6th place in her category at the 2022 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Fayetteville (USA). Other former participants include Great Britain’s Ben Turner (23), currently riding for Ineos Grenadiers, who has podiumed as an U23 at UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup in recent years, and Ruby West who, at 23 years old, has already represented Canada at five editions of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships.