In contrast to Diegem, the race at Hofstade is a world cup. And like professional road races, a world cup has pre-race day events and meetings. For this event, Elite registration and the Elite team managers meetings took place on Christmas afternoon in the Sporthotel.

The permenance was set up in the offices of the Sporthotel. As you enter the building, the race staff office was in the office section of the Sporthotel. Adjacent to this office was the cafeteria, which served as the room for the team manager meeting and on race day served as the press room. Inside, there is a white board with a diagram of the double pit and the allocation of the 24 boxes (12 on each side) to the teams at the race. One room over was a room set up to provide jackets to volunteers on race day. All volunteers were equipped with an off-white ¾ length rain jacket that had the event logo printed on the back. And of course, there were restrooms were on this floor.

Up one flight of stairs were the doping control room and adjacent restrooms used for doping control. Adjacent was the room for the commissaires, which ironically was never used at this event. A shame too, as this room was well equipped with a coffee machine, cups, several tables laid out in a U shape, and most importantly it was warm.

At 8:45am on Monday, December 26^th, my wife and two sleepy kids deposited me at the electronic gate to this Sporthotel. I asked the two off-white coated volunteers if this was the permenance. They had no idea, so I kept walking down the road to the building. Fencing was all set up for access control, but no one was at station. After filming the facilities as described above, I was at a loss as the commissaires room was dark with no sign of anyone having used the room. Normally when I visit a race, I meet up with Jury in the commissaire’s room. So at 9:10am I’m wandering around outside of the building looking for signs of the commissaires.

The fenced access is now manned with two volunteers checking for wristband credentials. I see them sending riders over to another building outside the controlled access area. Because of the need to provide security for the permenance, the organization placed Juniors, Intermediates, and U23 rider registration in a building outside of the fenced controlled area. So I left the secure area without credentials, taking the gamble I would find my colleagues and credentials in this building.

And so I did. Registration was set up similar to Diegem. There were two sets of computers and two pairs of operating teams set up on two long tables. Juniors and Intermediates (nieuwelingen) were being charged three Euros to enter the race and were issued their race number and wristband credentials for themselves and two mechanics. And like in Diegem, they had their health booklets signed to ensure they only raced twice a week. On the table was a sign saying to put the race number on the left side.

I met up with Patrick DeMunter, who facilitated my getting two sets of credentials: a yellow wristband, made of plasticized paper, with "Worldcup Cyclocross Hofstade" printed in black, using an adhesive that will destroy the band if removed; and a neck hanging credential saying "Wereldbeker Cyclocross" UCI Official. These credentials are designed by the UCI and all World Cup cross events use these credential designs.

In this building were also restrooms and a shower. I suppose these could be used as dressing rooms, however the Sporthall up the road was the official dressing room and showers location.

The president of the jury was Miroslav Janout, whom I worked with at the ‘92 Barcelona Olympics and have known from even before the games from the UCI Commissaire Seminars in Luxembourg. Miroslav comes from the Czech Republic, which is only second to Belgium in the popularity of cyclocross. This was Miroslav’s third world cup cyclocross race as president. He showed me the diagram of the official UCI credential designs to be used at these events, his pre-race email that he sent to the organizer to confirm various technical aspects of the race, and his USB memory stick that he carried templates of the key documents for the UCI – the inscription list, the start list, and the results. He said that the most common issue he has found is that organizers do not have the computer lists set up in advance nor in the right format and he has to help straighten out this process. Thanks Alan Atwood for making sure all the events I’ve been at have been squared away on this front!

At 10am, we’re off to the race course, which is a ten minute hike from the permenance.