This is the final lap of today’s UCI World Cup race in Igorre, Spain. Unfortununately, it’s a bit of a snooze, consisting almost excluisively of Sven Nys grinding through the mud on his way to a convincing solo victory.

There’s a nice shot of a bike change at 2:10, however, and I also liked the muddy turn at the bottom of a hill right before a river (1:15). That could have been interesting.

For those of you keeping score at home, the World Cup standings (after five events) are Sven Nys (BEL), Bart Wellens (BEL), and Zdenek Stybar (CZE).

Via Cyclocross Magazine, here is a helmet cam video of one lap around the course in Kansas City’s Tiffany Springs Park that will be used for the USA Cycling 2008 Cyclocross National Championships on December 11-14.

This video was shot at the beginning of November, though, and the 10-day weather.com forecast for Kansas City current shows a high of 36F and and low of 22F on December 12. So while the course may look the same (assuming there’s no snow), expect to see warmer kits than those being rocked in this video.

Here are a couple of videos from the fifth race in the Superprestige series, held on Sunday in Gieten, Netherlands. The first clip is a recap of the whole race, while the second focuses on the finale, during which Sven Nys valiantly - but unsuccessfully - pursued Bart Wellens and Klaas Vantornout, who prevailed over Wellens in a sprint finish.

The podium finishers of Sunday’s race are also at the top of the overall Superprestige standings. With three races left in the series, the leaders are Nys (71 points), Vantornout (68 points), and Wellens (62 points).

Here’s the video of the final lap of today’s Superprestige race (#4 of the Superprestige series) in Hamme-Zogge, Belgium.

With Niels Albert still out with the ruptured spleen he suffered last week in Gavere, and Lars Boom down with a urinary tract infection and associated fever, the way was clear for Sven Nys to ride away with it in some very wintry conditions.

Our friends over at DH Productions just released videos of races 3 and 4 in the U.S. Grand Prix of Cyclocross series, which were last weekend in Mercer, New Jersey. Race three was won by Tim Johnson of Cannondale-Cyclocross World, but he was sidelined Sunday with a knee injury picked up in that race, which opened the door for GT’s Todd Wells.

It was a cold, muddy weekend, and the videos are pretty well produced, so check them out.

Here’s a video of the television coverage of the elite men’s finish at last weekend’s World Cup race in Pijnacker, Netherlands. Lars Boom finally got a 2008 World Cup win, and Niels Albert looked strong as well, with Sven Nys settling for third, just ahead of Bart Wellens.

There are also some great photos from the race over at Belgium Knee Warmers.

And in semi-related news, yesterday the New York Times ran an article about cyclocross, written by Michael Barry.

I feel like I’ve been posting an awful lot of videos from Portland’s Cross Crusade series lately, but hey, they’re doing a lot of fun, interesting stuff.

Dan Kaufman from CrankMyChain.tv sent an email earlier today alerting me to this video that he just posted of last weekend’s Halloween-themed race at the Clastop County Fairgrounds. It’s got a lot of costumed racing action (I would say check out the lass in the stockings at 1:07, but I’m afraid that may actually be a lad), a few crashes, and jumping of fire, people, and a toilet. There’s even a guy on a unicycle riding off of some big drops, shortly before making an emergency visit to the urologist, I suspect.

In addition to the highlights clip I posted earlier, I also found a couple of interesting amateur videos from the UCI Cyclocross World Cup event in Tabor, Czech Republic.

First is this one of some crazies on the barriers, operating what appears to be a hand-cranked air-raid siren.

Next is this one of the sand pit, illustrating how fast the pros can move through pretty long stretches of sand.

Hot off the YouTube: highlights from today’s World Cup cyclocross race in Tabor, Czech Republic, won by Niels Albert.

Sven Nys crashes at about 1:00 on this video. He ended up in 4th place, 11″ back.

Someone just brought this Cross Crusade race video to my attention, and while it’s actually from last season, I thought it was worth sharing anyway. This is taking wet, muddy courses to the extreme, so depending on you attitude, this is either the ideal conditions for a cross race, or it has veered way too far into the realm of human-powered swamp buggy racing. Or maybe both at the same time.