June 18, 2010 (St. Paul, MN) – In bike racing you always have to expect the unexpected which was the case on Thursday at the Nature Valley Grand Prix. For those involved in the sport for decades and thought they’d seen everything, along comes something new – a tornado. As a result Stage 3 for the women, the 106.4km/66.5-mile Cannon Falls Road Race, was cancelled even before it began. The PA announcers had just finished the rider call ups and the 5:30pm start was minutes away when the National Weather Service issued severe tornado warnings for Goodhue County. Race director Dave LaPorte opted not to start the women’s race for the safety of the riders. We spoke with several riders to get their take on the unusual situation.

Anne Samplonius (Can) Team Vera Bradley Foundation

You’re the perfect person to talk to as you’ve probably been racing longer than anyone else here. Have you ever seen something like this before and what do you think of what’s happening here today?
Anne Samplonius: No, this is the first time that we’ve had a race cancelled before we even got out there. I was in a race many years ago where we were stopped with about 5km to go, but this is the first time I’ve ever had it stopped before it even started because a wicked storm is on the way. But I’m not surprised because every year around this time we come here and there’s always something. We’ve had crits cancelled or stopped here before, but not a road race.

To put this situation in perspective, how long have you been racing?
AS: Oh I haven’t really counted…at least 15 or 16 years and I’ve never seen this. But that said, when you start a race on a night like this when a storms roll in, like I said, it’s quite often that we’ve had evening crits here stopped due to weather like this. When you do a road race at this time it can happen so we’ve lucked out in past years that it’s never happened during a road race stage – but this year it finally has.

In this case the cancellation is due to the difference between bad weather and dangerous weather.
AS: When they’re calling for 60-mile an hour winds – we’re all looking and saying “oh let’s race”, but that kind of wind is pretty serious and I wouldn’t want to be stuck out in that. We did (Tour of the) Gila this year and the wind gusts were brutal maybe 50mph but those were just gusts at some point along the route. This could be quite dangerous, so I do agree to stop it for safety. No sense starting and then stopping in one hour, then we’re all wet and have to climb into cars.

And perhaps out in the middle of nowhere…
AS: Yes, exactly. The bad thing is that this is going to really affect the stage race. We have a crit on Friday, but only one road race is not good for my team, or teams who don’t have sprinters. But you can’t do anything about Mother Nature.

Enjoy your night off and thanks for speaking as the “wily veteran.”
AS: Haha, no problem!

Erinne Willock (Can) Team Webcor

Then we saw Erinne Willock of Team Webcor. On Wednesday night I’d noticed that Willock had changed her Facebook profile photo to a shot of the feet of her and her husband, Tony, on a Filipino beach…

So is your new Facebook photo a case of wishful thinking?
Erinne Willock: Yeah, now I really want to be at the beach since a tornado is coming – hahaha! It’s unbelievable!

Was your team looking forward to this stage?
EW: Yeah, we sure were! We’re still in contention on GC (Katheryn Curi Mattis is 30 seconds behind leader Alison Starnes) and we have a great sprinter with us (Joelle Numainville) so we were going for stage wins – so yeah!! But then again, I don’t want to be blown away by a tornado so this is ok.

Being from BC rain is ok but more is not…
Erinne Willock: Yeah, rain is fine with me (laughs.)

With the finishing circuits here, this would have been a good course for Joelle.
EW: Totally, and she’s sprinting so well right now which is exciting for a young rider like that!

Well, maybe tomorrow.
EW: Yeah, hopefully.

Kevin Field – Director of U23 squad Trek-Livestrong

The men’s stage had begun at 5pm, so the guys were 22.4km/14 miles up the road when Chief Commissaire Bonnie Walker decided to stop their race as well. Some racers rode back in the rain, some piled into team vehicles, but all were soon safe from whatever the weather gods had up their sleeves. Members of the U23 Trek-Livestrong squad rode back to Cannon Falls, where we caught up with Kevin Field, who is directing the team at Nature Valley:

Tell us about what happened here – why they called the men’s race off and if you’ve ever seen something like this before?
Kevin Field: No, I’ve never seen it before. I understand there was a severe tornado coming, and the National Weather Service upgraded their warning. I think it was the right decision, it was a really good call – a decision that’s made for the safety of all the riders is always a good decision. Maybe it was conservative, maybe not, who knows, time will tell, but I think it was a good call. I’ve never seen this before! You remember the U.S. Open in 2007 in Richmond (Virginia) when we had like six inches of snow and it was like 0 degrees (Fahrenheit) – they didn’t cancel that one. I’ve never seen a race cancelled in the middle like this – first time for me.

So if Svein Tuft (winner of the 2007 U.S. Open riding for Field’s Team Symmetrics) had been here he’d have wanted to race…?
KF: (Laughs) No, no, no! He would have been ok with the call, he’d have been fine with it, too.

What do you do now, regroup your guys and tell them to get some rest?
KF: Yeah, well you know our plan today before the race was to protect what we have, we have Ben (King) and Nate (Brown) 1-2 in the Young Rider’s Classification and they’re really close on GC so today was mission accomplished!

You’re such a good director!
KF: (Breaks out in laughter) I hope so! So now we’ll just see – tomorrow’s the crit in Minneapolis – we’ll take it day by day now and see what happens.

Thank you very much for your time.
KF: Thanks.

Field was right, time did tell. On Thursday evening tornadoes touched down in the vicinity of the race course, so officials had clearly made the proper decision. The Nature Valley Grand Prix will resume Friday night with the Uptown Minneapolis Criterium, and the forecast calls for a calm and dry conditions on Friday.