Saint Paul Crit: Men

Due to negative weather events, the St. Paul Criterium stage was neutralized and will not be included as an official stage in the race. No sprint points, king of the mountain points or time bonuses will be awarded. The Cannon Falls Road Race will be treated as stage one of the Nature Valley Grand Prix for 2008.

I'm not really sure what the deal is here, but I can sure speculate.....

Basically, the circuit was very short, the field is very big and when you stretch it out to single file, it probably takes about 90 seconds from tip to tail. This means that the front guy is nearly lapping the last guy and everyone is still connected. As the race started to shatter the officials lost track of who was where. Basically, any results that were posted would have been wrong. If accurate results can't be posted, then what's the point? Result: Cancel the stage! So, tomorrow is the REAL Stage 1.

Steve Tilford will probably post a more vivid account of the Non-Stage. He saw much more than I did of this race.