Madoka Natsumi of Japan was third in Wednesday's classic sprint, scoring what I'm pretty sure is Japan's first World Cup podium! It's exciting to see Japan do so well since they're part of the vagabond clique. At least that's what I call the Canada-US-Japan trio along with any other stray non-Europeans on the World Cup. Everyone else goes home between races and shows back up Thursday afternoon for the next weekend and we're the group that travels straight from venue to venue together. It does build up some camaraderie.