Race Report: 2026 Land Park Criterium - Men’s P/1/2/3
Race: Land Park Criterium - Men’s P/1/2/3
Date: March 14th, 2026
AVRT racers: George Wehner, Jack Liu, Jon Wells, Leo Minami, Michael Bektas, Paul Levy
Top Result: Michael 5th
Course: Oval-ish ~1 mile circuit with one tight S curve. Flat
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17724882056 (very broken file)
Nutrition: 500ml water + Maurten 320 (80g carbs)
Race Recap: Written by Michael.
With an almost identical squad as Cal Aggie, AV’s 1/2 crit group returned to Land Park ready to redeem ourselves. Thankfully, the field composition was completely different this time around. No longer the only large team, we had the likes of Terun, VFR and Cyclesport to share the field management with. Given the depth of this field, we fell back to our ol’ reliable “keep it simple and communicate” race plan that seems to work well for us. Personally, with Terun’s Alex Akins on an impressive streak and Cyclesport’s Ivan Linser going well at TBC, I figured it would be best to ignore any break formation attempts and just keep an eye on them.
This plan worked well as the other large teams fought each other hard for most of the race. With 15mins to go, I was excited to realize I would be able to avenge my failed sprint attempt from Cal Aggie. With a few laps to go, Jack and George moved their way to the front to keep things fast and together.
Coming into the final lap, I was comfortably on the end of the Terun train and well recovered to fight hard to the line. A mediocre final time through the S turn gapped me off the end of the train and I had to push hard to make up the extended gap after Terun’s first sweeper let a gap open up. I was able to claw my way back into 5th wheel into the last corner when again Terun did well to go slow through the corner and open another gap. This put me out of contention for the win and I had to launch early to wrap up 5th on the day.
It was definately annoying to suddenly be completely out of position when things were going so well, but that’s just racing and why we get so many reps in.