Schrödinger's Nationals

The start of the race shook my confidence, but I didn’t let it get the better of me. We came out of the first pinch point whittled down to a group of 4: myself, Lucy, Holly, and Haley. Later to be joined by Mikayla. Up the first shorter climb, Holly hit it. She got a gap, taking Haley with her, only to establish her lead by riding solo up the longer climb. As I was caught and passed by Mikayla and Lucy, there was a moment where I got down on myself thinking that might be the race over, but squashed those thoughts and switched my internal monologue to trusting myself. Sure enough, the front group of all 5 of us came back together over the top of the climb. We rolled together, then bombed the descent. When the climbing started again, I went to the front and set a pace I was comfortable with. Soon, I found myself solo. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and think it was a done deal, but at 30k to go, when I couldn’t see anyone behind, I started to truly believe I could win. Less than ten kilometers later, with that lead still intact, I was stopped by someone on the side of the road, told the race was stopped, that there were no points (I didn’t know what they meant by this), but I could continue to the finish.

With my head still in race mode, I asked them to write down my number and that I was the first elite woman that had arrived at that checkpoint. After he said okay, I left, still completely riddled with adrenaline and fixated on the need to get to the finish. It took a few moments before it sunk in: he said the race was cancelled. I was half in denial for the rest of the ride back. Surely they wouldn’t cancel nationals ~4 hours in and still ask us to ride to the finish? So, I kept trucking, and crossed the line first.

Turns out, they would - and did - do just that.

Rider safety has to come first, and I respect that the race had to be stopped. What I’m questioning is the preparation, communication, execution, and the resulting inequities that came with it.

What was, and wasn’t, used

When races have to be shortened/cancelled part way through due to safety, results are often taken from an earlier point on course. We don’t have to look far for precedent: the Queen stage of this year’s women’s Giro d’Italia was shortened - while riders were on the final climb - due to safety concerns. That we don’t have results for all categories reflects an organizational issue, one that I hope can be corrected in the future.

There were six radio checkpoints located throughout the loop. These were set up to prepare for the lack of cell service, and allow communication between the organization at the finish line and the riders on course. The infrastructure to reach us existed and was staffed. But how it was and wasn’t utilized is hard to swallow.

Reportedly, two of three of the lead men were told around 30-35k to go that the race was cancelled. That was around 12:30-12:40pm. I can only assume that this was the moment the organization had made the decision. But there was still confusion. Those men were allowed to continue to race, and Woods even reported being explicitly told the race was still on, sometime after 20k to go. Around the same time, on the other side of the course, at least one elite woman farther back was turned around, as the race had been cancelled, full stop. It seems the cancellation decision had already been made, and was being enforced, for some. Who got to keep racing and who didn’t simply doesn’t follow any consistent or equal rule that I can determine, with the information that’s publicly available.

The same checkpoints that were meant to communicate with us could have been used to establish results. Cycling Canada has stated that there were no intermediate timing points to determine positions. But there were - almost. Every radio point was an intermediate point that was following the race. Simply have someone note who reached the checkpoint, and when, and you’ve got a timing point, ready to help put together a results sheet. The opportunities to communicate with us and determine results were there, at those radio points, but they weren’t used.

Doesn’t it make sense that an emergency would be aided by data? Keeping us safe and scoring us fairly are served by the same information: who was where, and when. If done well, ensuring one can produce the other as a byproduct. Was this simply a huge missed collaboration opportunity between the organizer and Cycling Canada?

Treated differently

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also discuss my thoughts on how the women’s and men’s race were treated subtly, but fundamentally, different.

The men’s race had a lead moto, kind of. Officials and spectators at the finish line were given periodic updates on what was happening at the front of the men’s race. The women’s race didn’t have that, and that became more than just a harmless fact. After I crossed the line, and spoke to Cycling Canada officials about results, they told me that according to their timing, seven riders had finished in front of me. Each of those riders had been turned back on course due to cancellation, and thus hadn’t finished the race, but Cycling Canada didn’t know that until much later. They couldn’t accurately tell me who was at the front of our race, because they didn’t have the information. What makes this harder to accept is that Canadian Cycling Magazine posted stories to their instagram about our race, around the start of each lap. The magazine’s reporter had a more accurate picture of the women’s race than Cycling Canada, who was responsible for regulating it. It’s far from logistically impossible to follow both races, the gap in information simply shows who was overlooked.

Beyond the Title

Following the race, the media was reporting that the men’s race had finished before the cancellation, and that the women’s race was more complicated. Multiple articles were written about Woods’ win, with little to nothing written about ours. Part of that is simple. Woods had a win to report, as the front of the men’s race had seemingly been reverted back into a race. The women’s was not. The podium results for the men seemed relatively clean-cut. The women face doubt, despite having a clear race order separated by minutes. The public knew with certainty who the front men were throughout the race. For us, there was conflicting information - directly caused by how the race was conducted.

So the story became “the men’s race finished, the women’s was more complicated,” which is more than simply a statement of events, but highlights the downstream effects of decisions that gave one race a relatively clean ending while denying one to the other. In some cases, the lack of coverage of the women’s race shows a misstep from some media outlets for not asking questions. But largely, it reflects how the decision making process trickled down into how the race was reported.

What we need to see

There’s no perfect outcome to a situation like this. A heat wave, a hard, remote course, and a race cancellation were always going to cause some chaos. However, I believe there were tangible changes that could have been made to ensure we could award a jersey in every category, while only enhancing safety:

Situations like this tend to highlight small mistakes that might otherwise go unnoticed, like missing information, a late radio call, or a moment of indecision. Had things gone smoothly, they might not have been anything to write home about. But I would be doing a disservice to myself, and all the other riders that missed out on a result they earned, not to take this seriously and try to prevent it from happening in the future.

After 5 days of questions, I still don’t have the jersey. Not due to any fault of mine, or anything within my control, which would have been much easier to swallow. My dream of wearing the maple leaf will have to wait at least another year. Back in Duncan, where I hope some changes can be made.