Marshals play a crucial role in ensuring the safety and seamless execution of bike races, overseeing rider safety, providing critical updates to officials, and engaging with spectators. The Chief Marshal oversees the welfare of the marshal team, ensuring everyone is cared for, and serves as the crucial link between marshals and the event organization team. Read on to learn about Judith’s experience in the role:
“Chief Marshal to all marshals”. This is a call that I have heard many times in the nearly ten years that I have been around the cross country mountain bike and cyclocross scene. Grateful for the organisers’ time and effort to put on races, I have always offered to marshal when I can. I’ve been happily reporting to the marshal tent, often at dawn, to collect my radio, whistle, flags and lunch before setting off to spend my day at the side of the track watching the riders, shouting encouragement, guiding spectators, and occasionally mending the course tape. Like a bairn on a school trip though, my lunch is usually eaten by 10am.
So, when race organiser extraordinaire, Kate Jackson, caught me at the British Cyclocross Championships in Falkirk and asked if I would help Ruth, the chief marshal, coordinate the marshals for the 2024 SXC series, I felt like I already knew the crew, so why not? How hard could it be?
My first race felt like a baptism of fire! We had spent the previous couple of weeks anxiously repeating calls for volunteers. Cathkin Braes is a popular country park with many pedestrians and dog walkers, so plenty of marshals are needed to keep everyone safe. Would we have enough? It seemed not, but Ruth, our experienced volunteer coordinator, was calm and confident we would recruit enough to go ahead. And she was right, of course.
Unfortunately, we can’t set up the day before at Cathkin Braes, so at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning, we were setting up tents and taping the course by head torch. By 5 p.m., the racing was finished, and I was exhausted. Constantly keeping eyes on the course, listening to the marshals, and problem-solving had kept me on my toes all day.
Next up was the British XC series round at Kirroughtree. Ruth and I agreed to take one day each to chief marshal. British rounds have UCI points races, so the stakes are higher, and we have UCI commissaires to keep happy. I know most of the commissaires at the Scottish races, but for this race, we even had a commissaire flying in from Italy to officiate.
On Saturday, the sun shone, the races ran like clockwork, and with Ruth guiding the volunteers, everyone was happy. Sunday, however, tested my chief marshalling skills to the limit. You can’t always tell if marshals will turn up, meaning some last-minute adjustments to the plan were needed. The rain also started, making some of the course more challenging, and one of those adjustments turned out to be a smart call.
A nasty crash required liaison with commissaires about how to get medical help up the hill and safely extract the rider. Would we need to stop the race? The marshal briefing I had heard so many times and delivered myself only a few hours before was now critical. “Chief Marshal to all marshals” was going to need very clear instructions. The commissaires were brilliant, however, and with their guidance and support, the rider was safely extracted, the race continued, and we finished the weekend very tired but proud of delivering another fantastic weekend of racing.
Helping to coordinate the volunteers has been quite a learning journey, demanding organisation, persuasion, negotiation, teamwork, and problem-solving, but there has always been someone there to help if needed. The SXC team and the hosting clubs put in an enormous amount of unpaid hours to deliver races. When we see Scottish racers who have grown up racing SXC now performing on the world stage, I’m reminded how important the domestic racing scene is. Hearing a “thank you, marshal” as racers whizz past is the reward, knowing that I’ve done my bit.
Thank you, Judith, for sharing these valuable insights into the roles of marshal and chief marshal. For more information about these and other volunteering opportunities at cycling events, and how to get involved, click here.
If you would like to share your cycling story for our monthly Scottish Cycling BlogHer article, please email Melanie Toner, our Women and Girls Development Manager, at: [email protected]