BuseyBank Edwardsville Rotary Criterium Road Race Is Very Successful Event

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EDWARDSVILLE - The BuseyBank Edwardsville Rotary Criterium bicycle race festival had a successful return after having been canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with competitive races, a good turnout, and overwhelming community support to help make the return of the festival a success.

The event went off without a hitch underneath warm, if somewhat humid, conditions and a mix of sun and clouds. Rain and possible storms forecast for earlier in the day never materialized, which helped make for good racing.

"Well, besides being really, really, really tired, I could not be happier," said race director Brian Mulhall with a smile and laugh. "It's been over a million minutes since our last criterium, so that's a little tidbit I found this morning, and so, that's a long time. So year, missed 2020, we said we were going to come back for the 2021 race bigger and better, and the Edwardsville Rotary Club has delivered, and then some for the race."

Although there was much disappointment about having to cancel the 2020 criterium, the 11th edition of the event featured a redesigned course and enhanced features, including an entertainment zone and a new location for the kids' zone.

"Well, it would have been 11 years in a row," Mulhall said, "so this is our 11th in 12, and like most other people, we were disappointed, but it is a bicycle race, and so many people had to deal with such adversity during the COVID times. And we're just blessed to be back, and we absolutely, I guess, reinvented the course; it's changed a lot. Some of it goes over the same territory on Main Street, we added an entertainment zone, so there's a beverage tent, there's live music playing tonight, and there's a great food display in there, an LED digital board that is also going to display part of the race live at times. We moved the kids' zone down to the other side of Main, and we made it bigger, a little safer, got it off the street, and that's kind of just the start. But it definitely took a lot of planning, we have some great volunteers at the Rotary Club, our hearts are in the right places, and we're just tickled and proud to be here. It's a great turnout tonight."

A record number of competitors from around the country preregistered for the races, which gave the organizers much optimism of holding a successful race.

"We had a record preregistration for this race," Mulhall said. "We had 173 racers in 2019, we had 186 that preregistered, so we'll have more racers than that, but I think that's impressive to come back and have a new record amount of racers. We had 13 states represented in those preregistered racers, so we bring them in from, I think there was one from California, I think there was one from the east coast, and everywhere in between. So we're building quite a reputation with this race, for sure."

The first race of the day was the juniors' race, and a pair from O'Fallon, Mo., Logan Baugh, and Andrew Stafford, finished first and second respectively, with Sarah Banks of Westfield, Ind., placing third, Charles Fedder of Edwardsville coming in fourth and Alton's Luca Brudis finishing fifth. The winner of the women's category four and five race was Alexandra Cote of Urbana, while Gina Champion of Springfield finished second, Kathrine Lin of St. Louis was third, Rachel Bontrager of Olathe, Kan. was fourth and Katrina Keyes of Kansas City came in fifth. In the men's Masters 40-and-over race, the winner was Robert White of Cedarburg, Wisc., with Justin Kirk of Carmel, Ind. the runner-up, third place went to Jonathan Jacob of Indianapolis, Edwardsville's Keith Guilford was fourth and Ryan White of Whitefish Bay, Wisc. was fifth.

In the men's Masters 50-and-over race, Chris Harre of St. Lois was the winner, with Michael Bobelak of St. Louis came in second, third place went to Gary Dyer of Alton, Patrick Gribbon of Wildwood, Mo., was fourth and Mike Rickey of Columbia came in fifth. Nathan Oliviera of Highland won the Novice race for younger riders, with Scott Kieback of Edwardsville second, Maximus Macdonald, also of Edwardsville, was third, Brian Leachman of Chesterfield Mo. came in fourth and Andrew Bridges of Glen Carbon was fifth. In the men's Category four race, the winner was Mitchell Clinkenbeard of Plainfield, Ind., with Nicholas Ammann of St. Louis second, Jacob Linn, also of St. Louis, coming in third, fourth place went to Andy Tipton of Effingham and Jake Fuller of Redlands, Calif. was fifth.

St. Louis riders took four of the top five spots in the Women's Open race, with Ashley Weaver winning the race, Anastasia Yanchilina was second, Chloe Blundo was third, Edwardsville's Brianna Overbey came in fourth and Carrie Cash came in fifth. In the men's Category three event, the winner was Andy Schnurbusch of Eureka, Mo., with Kyle Kalish of Columbus, Ind. coming in second, Atticus Jones of St. Louis was third, Leonard Antonelli of Granger, Ind., was fourth and Eddie Stillman of Brownsburg, Ind. came in fifth. In the final and feature race of the day, the men's Category one and two, Asa Black of Leawodd, Kan. was the winner, with White coming in second, Tim Smith of St. Louis placing third, Thomas Fuller of Redlands, Calif. came in fourth and Robert Frangi of Indianapolis was fifth.

The Downtown Dash men's winner was Zach Boyle of Chesterfield, Mo., with a time for the two laps of 6:53, with Caleb Grinter of Marine second at 6:56, Luke Padesky of Maryland Heights, Mo. third at 7:06, Andrew Hessel of Edwardsville came in fourth with a time of 7:53 and Jonathon Brooks of Granite City was fifth at 8:02. In the men's age groups, Brundis won the under-10 group with a time of 10:47, Connor Schmidt of Edwardsville took the 10-14 group, coming in at 8:31, Kenan Strahm of Glen Carbon won the 15-19 group with a time of 8:21, Padesky was the winner of the 20-29 age group, while Boyle won the 30-39 category, Grinter took the 40-49 grouping, Scott Giovanetti of Columbia won the 50-59 age group with a time of 9:53 and Edwardsville's Wayne Skigen won the 60-and-over group at 9:24.

In the women's race, Lindsay Hustedde of Edwardsville won the overall title with a time of 7:45, with Edwardsville's Maggie Dust second at 8:32, third place went to Becca Starrett of Edwardsville at 9:04, Emily Hagedorn of Edwardsville came in fourth with a time of 9:24 and Jessica Elder of Granite City was fifth with a time of 9:48. In the age group categories, Hagedorn won the 10-14 grouping, Hustedde was the winner in the 20-29 race, Dust won the 30-39 age group, Kendra Clayton of Edwardsville won the 40-49 age group with a time of 12:16 and Glen Carbon's Kim Hood won the 50-59 group at 12:27.

As for the future of the Criterium going forward, Mulhall is very optimistic about the event and its future plans.

"Well, the new course is set," Mulhall said. "This will be our new footprint for several years, so really, it's about community involvement, promoting it, word of mouth from the racers to keep building more and more cyclists, building the youth, so get the kids more involved in the race. So, it's to expand on here. We did a lot this year; this was a lot of changes, we doubled the barricades, we're up to 4,700 feet of barricades. I'm telling you, that's a monumental task to try to get all those put out in three-and-a-half hours. It takes a lot of volunteers."

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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