Australian National CX Championships 2023: Elite Men’s Preview

The biggest race in Australian CX is taking place this Saturday in the Victorian town of Ballarat - the AusCycling National Cyclocross Championships. Read all about it below!

The Venue

The course will be a mostly flat circuit at Victoria Park, on the western side of Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree. Ballarat is a notoriously cold town, and the wind whipping off the lake can create very wintry conditions for riders and spectators alike.

The majority of the course will be on open grassy terrain, with occasional turns under the canopy’s of local pine trees.
The park’s grass is likely to be initially dewy for the early morning practice laps, before being churned to mud by the Masters categories that will be racing before the Elite categories. The course’s many corners that would ordinarily be straightforward are likely to get significantly trickier as a result.

There’s very little elevation gain for much of the lap, with the exception of the course’s main feature at the southern end of the track. It’s a short, steep climb, followed by an immediate steep descent into a hairpin turn, and a run-up the same hill that the organisers have dubbed ‘The Mound.’

The Mound is the course’s most technical feature, and - due to the carpet of pine needles that cover the ground - one of the few places on course that’s not likely to be muddy.

Once The Mound has been completed, riders will make their way back to the start village at the north end of the course, passing by the pits on the way.

Cyclocross courses are often thought of as being on a spectrum of technical difficulty, with easier courses with more steady pedalling tending to favour those with a road background, while technically challenging courses with on-off power thought to give an advantage to mountain bikers.
When measured against that metric the Ballarat course is definitely more to the road side - it favours riders with raw power over remarkable technical prowess, but depending on the weather conditions on race day it could still produce a variety of winners.

If you want to know about the course in more detail, you can check out our full course preview, or take a look at our race video from the same event last year.

The Weather

Last year’s Ballarat course saw wet and muddy conditions that turned large stretches of the course into a tractor pull. The terrain was so heavy that even Elite riders opted to run straight flat sections rather than continue to slog through the mire.

Conditions for the national championship weekend look broadly similar, with rain projected to fall on the two days prior to the big event, which should see riders reaching for their mud tyres and running the lowest pressures they can get away with.

The weather in Australian cyclocross this year has tended towards the warm and sunny, but with the projected low temperatures and the course likely to be muddy you can expect to see some riders heading into the pits for clean bikes during their race, as well as plenty of action from mechanics at the bike washing stations.

Last year’s Ballarat course was definitely a muddy one, and similar conditions are forecast for 2023.
Photo: @thatbikenerd

The Champion - Tom Chapman (SA / Team BridgeLane)

Elite CX national championship participations: 6
Previous highest finish: Champion (2022)

Tom Chapman has been racing CX for a decade now and has three green and gold jerseys in his cupboard at home, having won the Elite Men’s title in 2022 and the U23 races in 2014 and 2016. He represented Australia at the CX world championships in 2014, filled in for Katusha-Alpecin at the Bay crits in 2019 and now races on the road for Team BridgeLane. The Adelaide boy also is keen to give back to the community, regularly coaching local juniors on essential CX skills.

He’s undefeated in the green and gold since he won it last September, winning every race in the Pedla Crossfire Cup series and the only two events he raced in at the AusCycling Cyclocross National Series (CNXS) - all in his native South Australia, and all by convincing margins.

However, he missed last weekend’s State CX championships due to illness, so there will be questions over his form heading into his title defence.

Between Chapman and Chris Jongewaard, the Elite Men’s national championship has stayed in South Australia since 2017. Can he extend the streak for one more year?

Tom Chapman uses some body English to stay on the best line at round 3 of the Pedla Crossfire Cup in July.
Photo: @rideadelaide

The Challengers - Chris Aitken (NSW / MAAP Sixpence CX) and Garry Millburn (VIC / MAAP Sixpence CX)

The biggest challenge to Tom Chapman for the Elite Men’s national title is likely to come from the MAAP Sixpence CX teammates Chris Aitken and Garry Millburn.

Chris Aitken

Elite CX national championship participations: 5
Previous highest finish: 2nd (2018, 2019)

Aitken is a former teammate of Chapman’s at Focus-Attaquer, and won the U23 national title in 2015 in between Chapman’s two victories in that category.

Since then he’s represented Australia at the World Championships twice and racked up five podium finishes at the Elite Men’s National Championships - finishing second twice and third three times.

He’s had a strong year in the CXNS, winning four of the eight races and the overall title while never finishing lower than third. He also won the Elite Men’s race on both days of the Ballarat racing last year, so he’s clearly comfortable on the circuit.

He’s been close to the Elite national championship before - could this be the year the bespectacled man from Newcastle finally takes the top step?

Garry Millburn

Elite CX national championship participations: 7
Previous highest finish: 2nd (2016, 2017)

Garry Millburn might be the most accomplished Australian male cross rider to never have worn the green and gold. The 36 year-old has represented Australia at the world championships four times, and has been a perennial contender for the national title, with his best finishes being 2nd place in 2016 and 2017.

He’s currently in second place in the overall CXNS standings this year, having racked up two second place finishes and six thirds across the series’ eight rounds. He also won both rounds of the Victorian CX Series he competed in, most recently at Dirty Deeds CX in Melbourne in late July.

A positive COVID-19 test meant that he didn’t race on the Ballarat circuit last year, but he’ll be relishing the chance to race for the biggest title in Aussie cross in hard and sloppy conditions - if you see a rider doing a rain dance before this weekend, there’s a good chance it’s him!

Chris Aitken (left) and Garry Millburn (right) lead the Elite Men’s field in the early stages of round 3 of the 2023 CXNS in Adelaide.
Photo: @thatbikenerd

The smokey - Nick Smith (NSW / Flanders-FMB)

Elite CX national championship participations: 2
Previous highest finish: 4th (2019, 2022)

The youngest of our favourites for the Elite Men’s national championship at age 26, Nick Smith’s youth doesn’t mean he’s lacking in experience. He’s raced in Europe, China and Japan and has represented Australia at the CX world championships five times as a junior and U23 rider - more than any other Australian by our reckoning. The technical difficulty of European racing is renowned for intimidating riders from Down Under, but Smith has gained a reputation as a rider who gets better the more challenging the course is.

The quietly spoken man from the Southern Highlands of NSW took a couple of years away from cross racing during the COVID-19 pandemic, but made a comeback to the CXNS in the latter half of the 2022 season, and finished an encouraging fourth place at last year’s national championships.

This year he’s competed in all eight rounds of the 2023 NCXS, finishing between second and fifth each time. For many years Smith played the junior role on the Flanders-FMB team to national champions Chris Jongewaard and April McDonough, but with those two now retired from cross he’ll be the main man for Flanders-FMB in Ballarat this weekend.

Nick Smith powers through a corner at round 3 of the 2023 CNXS with the Adelaide Super-drome in the background.
Photo: @thatbikenerd

The race will be starting at 3:30pm AEST on Saturday August 19th in Ballarat. The race won’t be televised, but you can follow all the action by following CX Down Under on Facebook and Instagram - we’ll be doing our best to document all the highs and lows of the day!

Who’s your tip to be Australia’s Elite Men’s CX National Champion in 2023? Let us know in the comments below!