By now I'm sure you've seen or heard the stories from the 2nd round of the UCI World Cup in Offenburg, Germany.  After rain in the early part of the week, things dried up nicely on race day, and full fields of men and women attacked the course in search of speed and superiority.  The dry weather was welcome after rain last year turned the race into a slippy quagmire.

Our own Susan Haywood was 31st, building on her start position of 37th, and maintaining her spot as the 3rd American female in the World Cup overall standings.  So, she's basically right in the running for a possible Olympic bid!  The first selection criterion is top two Americans in the World Cup overall, so if she moves up just a few spots in the next few races, she's there!

Jeremiah Bishop on the other hand is struggling, and we all feel bad for him.  His lifelong dream is the Olympics, and he was OH so close in 2004.  This year was supposed to be about total focus, and I've seen his training data: he's focused all right!  But somewhere along the line this spring, between training, Cape Epic, and traveling, he's really tired.  We were all hoping that he'd come out of the Cape Epic with huge form, but it's turning out that he's just really zapped for strength.  A huge miscalculation somewhere along the line...

On the other hand, it's not as if things are living up to recent standards.  Most of the American men are suffering in Europe -- Todd Wells and Adam Craig being the notable exceptions.  Those guys must have stepped it up a BIG notch over the winter.  It's great for them!  But on the other hand JHK and Sam Schultz are not up to speed yet, so JB is not alone.   Racing in Europe is exceptionally hard.  There's just no way to understate the level.

I didn't come away with photos or video of my own, but here's something from Jeremiah's wife Erin: