When the second annual USA Biking Gravel Nationwide Championships return to Nebraska this September, the elite racers will probably be vying not only for the coveted title and Stars and Stripes jersey however for some chilly, onerous money in addition.
Right now, the Nationwide Federation introduced that the elite races could have a $40,000 prize purse. Whereas that is fairly a bit lower than final 12 months’s $60,000 prize purse, it is usually considerably greater than most of the high gravel occasions, like Unbound Gravel and Massive Sugar, which provide no money prize in any respect, or SBT GRVL with its $22,000 mixed prize purse.
“We’re happy to supply a $40,000 prize purse for the Elite races, with an equal pay out for women and men. As a company, we’re dedicated to supporting the game of gravel racing, and this prize purse is testomony to that,” stated Kyle Knott, USA Biking’s Director of Nationwide Occasions.
The highest three finishers within the males’s and girls’s elite classes can even robotically qualify to compete in opposition to the world’s finest on the UCI Gravel World Championships in Belgium in October, with full assist from USA Biking.
The 2024 USA Biking Gravel Nationwide Championships will probably be held on Sunday, September 8, in Gering, Nebraska. Along with the elite classes, there will probably be numerous age teams, para fields, a non-binary race, and a single-speed class. Podium finishers in these novice classes can even punch their tickets to the world championships, albeit with the assist of USA Biking.
This 12 months’s programs are an identical to final 12 months’s and are held on an unlimited community of grime miles in Nebraska’s Landmark Nation. All programs characteristic not less than 90 % gravel and vary from 131.1 miles all the way down to 24.8 miles for the youth classes.
The lengthy course will probably be contested by the elite, non-binary and singlespeed classes in addition to agree teams 19 via 49. The lads’s and girls’s elite races could have their very own begin occasions however race on the identical course. The route encompasses a bumpy profile with 5,715 toes of elevation achieve and a downhill, paved run-in to the end. The official course maps may be discovered right here.
The inaugural occasion drew extremely aggressive fields for elites and amateurs alike, with gravel professionals like Keegan Swenson, Alexey Vermeulen, Pete Stetina, Payson McElveen, Lauren De Crescenzo, and Lauren Stephens vying for first-time honours and a slice of the substantial prize purse.
The primary-ever nationwide titles have been gained by Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles/SRAM), and former U.S. nationwide highway champion Lauren Stephens (then of EF-Schooling Tibco-SVB,now Cynisca Biking). Each represented the USA on the 2023 UCI Gravel World Championships, the place they completed fifth and sixth, respectively.
Registration for the USA Biking Gravel Nationwide Championships is now open and may be discovered right here.
