The Arzouian Cup

Eddie Arzouian

Friday, July 8, 2005 downtown Kamloops, the big event!

Who will win the First Annual Arzouian Cup?

How many more riders will the event get now that it is an official criterium championship?
I congratulate the winner in advance and regret not being there to shake your hand.

Eddie Arzouian

We have our winners! I think?

Even though it is Saturday morning and the races were held yesterday no Official results are posted anywhere yet. The PDF download on www.roadnationals.com did not work at 9AM Montreal time.

Is everybody on holidays in Kamloops. Nothing like timely results to ensure good media coverage. Many newspapers do not pulbish on Sunday, You missed Satruday and by Monday they will not run news that is thre days old.

Is this Kim Sebrango's idea of good communications? You won't get any sponsors that way, baby.

Good job with getting those results out to the rest of the country (not!).

Anyway, the first winners of first annual Arzouian Cup are (unofficially) Charles Dionne and Mandy Poitras. Congratulations to our new National Criterium Champions! Their teams were not listed so we cannot know if they rode for their province or their trade team. So I won't mention either here. This is another bad omission. You would think Rob Jones of Canadian Cyclist would know better.


Charles Dionne is from Quebec though and maybe somebody here would have like to hear he was Canadian National Criterium Champion.



(Note: the lack of results is probably due to poor scheduling by race organizers in Kamloops, the City of Kamloops and the Canadian Cycling Association. The races started at 5PM Pacific Time. No doubt because it was impossible to close 900 metres of street in busy downtown Kamloops on a Friday afternoon in July. Instead of running the most important race first, the Elite Men, at 5PM Pacific Time, which would have given them time to get those results out in the east where most people live, they ran the Juniors and then Masters (who should not even be racing on this weekend, they should have their own championships). The Elite Men went only at 8:45PM Pacific Time! Great media relations thinking there. If Kamloops is thinking it is raising its national profile by refusing to close 900m of streets at noon, they are wrong. It is a national championship, think nationally. It is pretty simple. Kamloops, the CCA and race organizers blew all national sports coverage by doing that. Amateurs.)

Professionals, take back your sport before they kill it!



* Kim is Kim Sebrango, the new Director of Marketing Operations at the Canadian Cycling Association who has absolutely no cycling experience. she would have had no input in this as she just started. Instead CCA Chief Operating Officer, Steve Lacelle, would have been overseeing this, only he has no cycling experience at all either unless you count the last four months of on the job training. This would have been his first national road cycling championships. Our sport suffers while these newbies learn.



CCA President Bill Kinash held one national calibre road race in Saskatchewan in 20 years, so he would not have been much help.

And there you have your Three Blind Mice of Canadian cycling.



This newsletter goes out regularly to about 450 people. To get on the list just email me at ed@arzouian.com

Eddie Arzouian

PS Somebody send me photos of the winners in their new Official Jerseys.


You know, somebody should give me one of those jersyes, seeing how hard and long I worked to re-instate the Crit Championships.