USA Biking has introduced its roster of elite and age-group cyclists to tackle the world’s finest on the UCI Gravel World Championship on October 5 and 6.
That is the third yr of the Gravel World Championships, which, after having been held in Italy for 2 editions, will happen within the Flanders area of Belgium. In 2023, the elite races had been gained by Matej Mohorič (Slovenia / Staff Bahrain Victorious) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland / Canyon-SRAM).
This yr, Staff USA hopes to search out itself on the elite podium with a roster that blends WorldTour street racing expertise with prime gravel racers. Freshly topped U.S. nationwide gravel champions Lauren Stephens and Brennan Wertz will probably be joined by the likes of retired WorldTour racer Ted King, Visma-Lease a Bike rider Colby Simmons, DNA Professional Biking‘s Shayna Powless and previous Unbound Gravel winner Lauren De Crescenzo.
Notably lacking from the checklist of athletes is Keegan Swenson, who is taken into account to be the highest gravel racer within the nation however did not safe a spot. Riders had a number of methods to qualify for the Gravel World Championships because of the UCI’s Biking for All initiative. These {qualifications} included a end within the prime 25% of one of many UCI Gravel World Collection occasions, a win of their Nationwide Championship class, or being nominated as a ‘wild card’ addition by ending within the prime 5 on the Elite Gravel Nationwide Championships.
The Europe-based UCI Gravel World Championships have up to now eschewed the lengthy distances popularised by American gravel races, and the routes for the 2024 occasion aren’t any totally different. The elite girls’s discipline will deal with 133 kilometres on Saturday, October fifth, and the elite males will cowl “simply” 179 kilometres the next day. In comparison with the 200-320-kilometre U.S. races, these distances are slightly quick certainly. However the place it lacks in distances, it makes up for in punchy climbs and slim, twisty-turny paths.
Gravel, cobblestones and unpaved surfaces make up 56% of the route, many sections of which had been beforehand featured within the 2023 European Gravel Championship, gained by Classics specialist Jasper Stuyven (Belgium) and sprinter Lorena Wiebes (The Netherlands). The paved sections will even be acquainted for some, because the 2021 UCI Street World Championships passed off in the identical area, travelling between Antwerpen and Leuven. This Classics-style race was gained in a dash by Elisa Balsamo (Italy) within the girls’s race and by Julian Alaphilippe (France) who entered the end solo within the males’s occasion.
Podium hopefuls representing Staff USA within the elite classes are:
The newest race content material, interviews, options, evaluations and knowledgeable shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
Staff USA – males’s elite
- John Borstelmann (Slowtwitch Goodlife Racing)
- Ted King (Cannondale)
- Andrew Lydic (Trip BMC)
- Justin McQuerry (Ibis Cycles/ Presta Cycle/ Moose Packs)
- Ethan Overson (Scuderia Pinarello)
- Colby Simmons (Staff Visma | Lease a Bike)
- Brennan Wertz (Mosaic Cycles)
Staff USA – girls’s elite
- Whitney Allison (First Endurance)
- Lauren De Crescenzo (Issue Bikes/ The Feed / Maxxis / Castelli)
- Laura King (Cannondale)
- Shayna Powless (DNA Professional Biking)
- Sofia Schugar (Monarch Racing)
- Hannah Shell (Pearl Izumi/ Cervélo)
- Lauren Stephens (Cynisca Biking)
- Kyleigh Spearing (Enve Composites)
- Leah Van Der Linden (Lauf Cycles / Eliel Biking / Giro Biking)
- Caroline Wresszin (Castelli Biking)
