Master’s Cycling Event Begins at Fashion Valley

Some of the world’s premier amateur cyclists will descend on San Diego this week for the expanded Master’s World Cup of Cycling, the first time the event has been in the United States.

For the past 22 years, the World Cup has consisted of an 87-mile road race in Tirol, Austria. But Skip Cutting, a former world champion who has cycled for the U.S. Olympic team, arranged to supplement that event with criterium and velodrome racing today through Saturday in San Diego.

The Soviet Union, Canada, France and Switzerland are among the foreign teams expected beginning today with the criterium in the Fashion Valley Mall parking lot.

“We have excellent quality riders coming,” said Cutting, who lives in Laguna Beach. “It is a very technical criterium course. It’s very rigorous and takes strong bike-handling riders.

“It will take a few years, but hopefully this will develop into a San Diego premier event.”

One of the top U.S. riders competing today is Ken Fuller of Anaheim Hills, who recently won the World Cup road race in Austria in the men’s 40-44 year-old division. Fuller hadn’t competed in the World Cup since his 12th-place finish in 1987 in the men’s 35-39 division. He won it in 1985 and took third in 1987.

He just returned from the Soviet Union, where he won the 50-mile road race in the county’s national championships.