At this point, you’ve likely heard that gravel nationals was canceled mid race. And you’ve probably heard that Cycling Canada won’t be naming champions in 10 categories. You’ve probably also heard Mike Woods finished the men’s race first of the elite men. But what about the women’s race at gravel nationals?
You might not know Kaitlyn Rauwerda was leading the women’s race and, like Woods, continued racing to cross the finish line first of the elite women to finish the course. As did Mikayla Arrends, who was sitting second on the road when someone with the race told her there might not be results.
The day after Cycling Canada announced there would be no results, we talked to Rauwerda about how the race was going, what happened next and some of her thoughts on what could have happened differently.
As it happened: An exciting battle at Burnt Bridge
While there were very few truly flat sections of the Burnt Bridge course, the main loop, which the elite racers rode twice before racing back to the staging area, was defined by one shorter climb and one big climb and, shortly after the latter, one ripping fast descent. In the women’s championship, the pressure was already on early in the race. That meant a group of four, including Haley Smith, Lucy Hempstead, Kaitlyn Rauwerda and Holly Henry rolled into the climb as a group of four.
“Holly hit us really hard on that first climb,” Rauwerda remembers. “I thought, woah, she’s on fire today. It was really impressive.”
That group of four slowly came back together over a rolling top section, with Rauwerda the last to reconnect.
“I went out a lot more conservatively, so I was the last to join back up to that group. Then we absolutely bombed the descent. Haley’s a mountain bikers, so she took the lead through there and ripped it. My job was just to stay as close to her as I could.”
That worked, and the top women were bunched close together leaving the feed zone at the lap point. When the group hit the climb that Henry had attacked on the first lap, Rauwerda says she focused on riding a sustainable pace. That quickly put her off the front of the lead group.
“Kaitlyn made an impressive move on the climb,” recalls Mikayla Arrends, who had joined the front group. “I chased. I was sitting in second, which was way beyond what I thought I was capable of. But I felt really confident despite the conditions.”
From there, the race stayed split apart. Rauwerda led with Arrends behind. Smith was slightly further back with Hempstead holding her within sight on the climbs.
“I stopped again for water, tried to manage my fueling. Riding solo, I just held a that sustainable pace and trusted myself,” Rauwerda says. “I knew that I could descend close to the best descender in the race, so I was really confident in coming through to the finish.”
The news: “I was devastated. Devastated and confused”
Then, as the final descent approached, riders started being flagged down by a marshal with the race. The event was being canceled. To say “mid-race” might be a bit misleading. Riders near the front of full-course events, like the elite women, men and several masters categories, were only 23km from the finish line of a 128km course when they were told they were no longer racing. Already four hours in, this was not great news.
“I was devastated,” Rauwerda recalls. “Devastated, but then also confused. In my adrenaline-fueled brain, it was hard to process that the race was being stopped. I told the official to write down my race number, and that I was the fiist elite woman through. Then rode away. I felt like I needed to go quickly. Then, as I was descending, I was trying to figure out if they were really canceling the race, or canceling the fondo. Because they told us to still ride to the finish and surely they wouldn’t cancel nationals 23 km from the finish and ask us to still ride back.”
Rauwerda said that fans cheering on the side of the road made it more confusing. She asked one if it was actually canceled and, while they said yes, they also suggested to keep riding just in case. Rauwerda and Arrends both say that, given the confusing communication of the cancellation, like the top men did, they continued racing.
“When they were still announcing finishers I I thought, ‘Oh the race certainly must still be on,” Rauwerda recalls.
“It wasn’t until I got to my mom and she told me they weren’t doing results… that was the most devastating moment of the day.”
The wait: Five days on edge
Racers were told little as the event organizers focused on getting the remaining riders safely off course. Cycling Canada officials told riders that there would be a review process of the results, but that nothing would be announced that day. With little by way of resolution, riders slowly left the venue to start the trip home. Results of the review of Sunday’s race weren’t announced until Friday afternoon.
“I would describe the next five days as having pre-race nerves, where you kind of don’t know what’s going to happen and you’re anxiously anticipating it,” Rauwerda said. “It was not the most comfortable situation to be in. There was a kind of disbelief, a sense of it being unfinished and not knowing what was going to happen.”
In the mean time, the news of the cancellation made headlines around North America. Most of that focused on Mike Woods and the oddness of a late-/post-race race cancellation. Even here at Canadian Cycling Magazine, we’ll admit our coverage of the men was initially more detailed than the women. In part, that is because, while the men were told the race was canceled at the same point on course, they arrived at the finish line before that news was announced to spectators.
“There were other articles that just kind of skimmed over us or ignored it almost completely. That’s frustrating as a rider because media attention is a type of currency,” Rauwerda explained. “Especially when you’re bartering with sponsors for contracts. I always like to sit back and get all the information before I make something public, because we didn’t know what was going on. We were told it was the heat, which didn’t quite make sense. Then further information showed that there were issues with the medical staff. It’s hard. It was frustrating to sit back and wait while everyone else was discussing it and just hoping that the story doesn’t go stale before I can speak about it.”
Rauwerda wasn’t just sitting, of course. While Cycling Canada told us that they discussed Friday’s decision with athletes, Rauwerda said she reached out to them with her perspective, and some data to back it up, on the race.
“I sent it hoping that it would be helpful. I heard back saying that they received it. That was the end of the communication from them until they released the results.”
Rauwerda says she’s quite conflict adverse and even having to reach out like that to advocate for her position was an uncomfortable position.
“I’m confident that that was my race, and I don’t ever say that unless I’m 100% sure,” Rauwerda says, addressing the argument that the race wasn’t finished and anything could have happened in those last 23 km. “There’s always going to be that question mark, like, what if she flatted, what if she crashed, that doesn’t give it quite the same validity. I’m my own worst critic, but part of that is my fear of what people were going to say if I came out publicly and said that I think that my was my race. Yet I’m still confident enough to say it.”
Safety versus Safety and unresolved racing
“There’s also an element of precedent that, if you cancel a race deep into it, you take a result from an earlier time point,” Rauwerda adds. That shifts our conversation from what happened to what could have happened. This is something Rauwerda goes into in detail over on her own website. If you’re interested in that, you should really read her discussion (and Woods Substack report from the race).
In it’s decision, Cycling Canada stated that doing so was impossible because there were no intermediate timing points. Beyond the basic question as to why a championship race that included two laps on the same course didn’t have any timing at that lap point, Rauwerda makes a strong argument that there were still options. Just weeks ago at the women’s Giro, unsafe course conditions – that time involving ice instead of heat – forced the early finish of the week’s Queen stage. Instead of canceling the stage entirely, organizers set up a very rudimentary finish line earlier in the stage.
Road stage racing isn’t championship gravel racing, but that’s also just one option. There were, arguably, many other options in the days leading up to the race and during the event itself.
There are two ways to address rider safety: to react to unsafe conditions or two ensure that conditions never become unsafe in the first place. While statements from the organizers have focused on addressing on-course safety issues, most racers remain frustrated that the race deteriorated to the point where conditions on course were unsafe to continue.
“Honestly, even after speaking with the organizers I am confused as to why it needed to be canceled for the elites and how it could have come to this,” Smith said in the days after the race. “I do appreciate that the organizers were concerned about the health and safety of of the amateur riders. I fully get that. This was a contingency that could have been planned for in many ways. It’s frustrating to go home this way, and there really isn’t a satisfactory conclusion to the event now.”
At this point, the top three men and several of the top women have publicly stated similar concerns. We’ve spoken to more athletes, and had several reach out to us, who wished to remain anonymous but raised the same issues. All that to say, this is not one person complaining because they didn’t get a medal. This is numerous, experienced and respected athletes all voicing similar concerns about the preparations leading into the event and the communication during and after the event.
“I want to emphasize that there’s no perfect outcome from any of this,” Rauwerda adds. “If you have to cancel a race, it’s never going to be perfect. There was a lot of ways that things could have been addressed a little bit differently to make sure that we could have salvaged something more from it.”
“I came into this race feeling really prepared and excited. I work full time and train when I can, so just getting to line up with the elite women, and racing for a podium position, was truly amazing,” Arrends adds. “I’m sad and frustrated that the results don’t matter. Athletes spent hours of training and money to get to this race. Athletes rely on these results for potential sponsorship opportunities and because of poor event organization, the is result was taken from us. Congratulations to Kaitlyn for the win and to everyone else who laid it all out there. We deserved better.”