Saturday Saturday brought even more races and with that came more triumphs for those brave guys from Amsterdam. Given the fact that Amsterdam lies 6feet below see level and there is not a single hill higher than a speed bump around here, the 82nd, 207th and 225th place for Kees, Tijn and Mike set new standards in the domain of uphill time trails. Fighting not only the hill, but also vertigo and oxygen deprivation once they had passed the first switchback, the fact that these guys made it to the top makes them the moral winners of this competition. Saturday night saw a big party at the Rote Fabrik, were two more competitions were held: The trails competition and the strip-while-trackstanding competition. While the latter was clearly won by Zürich's own Luc, the former saw another demonstration of the supremacy of the Amsterdam messengers. Jur placed 5th and only the fact that he was riding his standard courier-bike kept him from going for number one. Sunday Although it remained disputed when exactly Saturday night ended and Sunday morning rose, for those who had to race in the semi-finals this was at 11am sharp when they had to line up for the start of this second part of the main race. This semi-final produced the expected results, as almost all of the qualifiers where guys from either the blue or the green team. Only the fact that they where not from the blue or the green team could keep the remaining three Amsterdam messengers from entering the finals, but with Kees being the fastest fixed-gear rider in the main race the team from Amsterdam had once again set new standards in messenger-racing. As expected the man's main-race was won by Fryday while in the women's race Yvonne Kraft - somwhat unexpectedly - was beaten by Zürich's own Chrissi Schenk. The weekends last event, the backwards-circle-riding competition for trackbikes was - also quite unexpectedly - won by the only competing freewheel rider, Felipe from NYC. Epilogue On Monday morning - with most of the participants already being on the way home - some 60 messengers gathered on the Platspitz for the annual IFBMA meeting. This meeting was dominated by the need to find a city to host next years CMWC. Both Boston and Budapest were willing to organise the event, so that a decision had to be taken. After discussing both proposals and numerous questions being asked the votes were taken. With 34 against 30 votes Boston was nominated host city for the CMWC 2000. (Given the fact that the guy from Boston had no difficulties to praise his city and make lots of promises as English was the only language heard during the meeting this comes as no surprise as the guys from Budapest had a much harder time to make themselves heard over the weekend.)