On a cold, wet morning in early February, snow piled up along Kyoto's Katsura River had thawed, but conditions were near-freezing on a makeshift course with a mixture of frozen and slushy mud. The stage set in the ancient Japanese capital was the final round of the Kansai Cyclocross series for the 2024-2025 season. Riders tumbled one after another and, covered in mud, were forced to push their bicycles over the treacherous surface. Cyclocross is a cycling discipline featuring off-road racing on courses with grass, dirt, mud, sand and other natural and man-made obstacles, such as fences and stairs, requiring riders to dismount and run with their bicycles. Competitors compete for the fastest time, typically on a course with laps approximately 3 kilometers long. Bicycles have wider tires than road bikes and narrower ones than mountain bikes. The sport is particularly popular in Europe, where it is based, and has a history of over 100 years. During the fall and winter seasons, professional riders travel to Belgium, the Netherlands, and other countries to race. In Japan, many riders compete in cyclocross too, especially in the Kansai region encompassing Osaka and Kyoto, where around a dozen races are held each year. The Kansai series travels from place to place, providing a variety of challenges to riders, who face a steep climb on a ski slope in Shiga Prefecture neighboring Kyoto while their wheels get bogged in sand on the course of a beach in Osaka Prefecture. Hisanori Ueda, 37, who oversees the operations of the Kansai series, said the race at Kyoto's Katsura River where nearly 1,000 riders entered "must be the largest in the history of cyclocross in Japan." Ueda served as a race official for the cycling events at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics held in 2021 and has a dream of helping Japan host the world cyclocross championships. He traveled around the world as a member of the cycling club at Kyoto University. His love of the sport led him to join a group that organizes cycling races, where he got a license to become a race official. He began managing the Kansai Cyclocross series in 2019. At the Tokyo Games, Ueda was chosen as a racing official and played a major role in counting the lap numbers in the track events and ringing the bell for the final lap before the finish. Recognizing "a close connection between riders and race officials" at the international cycling events, Ueda actively tries to communicate with cyclocross racers when he officiates. More than 60 cyclocross races were held across the country in the 2024-2025 season, including the local series events in northeastern Tohoku and southwestern Kyushu regions. Members of the Kansai cyclocross management team assisted in the organization of the March event in Tokushima Prefecture, a part of the series in Shikoku, one of Japan's four main island. Athletes from the Kansai region traveled there to compete in the race. With the national cyclocross championships slated to be held in Osaka in December under the direction of Kansai Cyclocross, Ueda is already racking his brain about how to smoothly carry out the event. And he has set his sights beyond that with his experiences from the Tokyo Olympics, which earned him connections with officials of cycling's world governing body UCI. "I just want to work for hosting the world championships in Japan sometime in the future. That's what I'm aiming for," Ueda said. Related coverage