Worlds – Landing in Zolder

I arrived in Zolder Belgium today. Actually we are technically just on the outside of Zolder very close to the auto race track. The race track is where the TT will finish and the Road race will start and finish. Our hotel is only 500 or 600 meters from the entrance to the race track. This hotel is were almost all the staff and all the Elite (Pros) will stay. The hotel where the Juniors and Under 23s are staying is just down the street and still only 200 meters farther away from the track. Super easy to get there.
Jiri Manus a big boss at the Federation had originally booked a nice Castle 40 minutes away from Zolder. After visiting Cross worlds here in Older early this year, he decided to change and stay here. According to him it took 3 hours to drive from the finish to the hotel (we are currently at) so he changed from the castle and booked rooms where we currently are staying. That was with and estimated crowd of 40,000 at Cross worlds. Road worlds expected over 250,000 spectators. That would have been impossible according to Juri.
It is Saturday almost a full week before road worlds and three days before the TTs start. The road course is 13k and the TT course varies from 13k to 40k. The Junior women and men use one course. The under 23s and Elite women use another TT course and the Pros use still another course. All three TT courses use the basic direction to Zolder but some kilometers are added here and there to make it longer for some categories.
Already ALL of the spectator Fencing is in place. Both the TT course(s) and road course have been fenced the entire distance on both sides of the road. OK, there are some areas that are naturally fenced or have crowd control in place but there is a ton of fencing. I’m going to conservatively guess they have over 45 to 50 kilometers of fencing in place. That is a ton of fencing. This does not even count the fencing used at intersections at feeder roads getting to the course.