US Gravel Nationals add enticement of 10 elite spots for UCI World Championships to hefty prize purse

The pairing of a money purse totalling $40,000 together with the pink, white and blue of the stars-and-stripes jerseys and an opportunity to symbolize the nation on the UCI Gravel World Championships are the highlights of the menu for elite riders on the 2024 USA Cycling Gravel National Championships. 

Now in its second version, Gravel Nationals return to Gering, Nebraska on Sunday, September 8. While the prize cash cut up equally amongst elite women and men is 33% lower than final yr, USA Cycling confirmed to Cyclingnews that the general elite gravel winners will every obtain $10,000 in comparison with $12,000 beforehand. 

There is, nonetheless, a rise within the variety of prime finishers who will share within the purse, the payouts going seven riders deep relatively than simply the highest 5 final yr. Second place pays $5,000, third place $2,000, fourth place $1,500, and fifth, sixth and seventh taking the remaining cheques price $750, $500 and $250, respectively.

In addition, computerized {qualifications} for the UCI Gravel World Championships will likely be expanded to the highest 5 for elite ladies and men, bumped from simply the highest 3 final yr. Age group National Champions will proceed, with every winner qualifying for Worlds.

“We are happy to supply a $40,000 prize purse for the Elite races, with an equal pay out for women and men. As a corporation, we’re dedicated to supporting the game of gravel racing, and this prize purse is testomony to that,” mentioned Kyle Knott, USA Cycling’s Director of National Events.

At final yr’s inaugural Gravel National Championships, the $60,000 prize purse was used to entice prime riders within the self-discipline to carve out time on the busy schedule to journey to western Nebraska, the closest main airport three hours away in Denver, Colorado. USA Cycling CEO Brendan Quirk famous that the funds had been generated from entry charges and sponsorship. 

Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles) and Lauren Stephens (now with Cynisca Cycling) obtained $12,000 every for profitable the elite titles. At the 2023 UCI Gravel World Championships in Italy, the newly-crowned nationwide champions had been the highest US finishers within the elite classes, the place Swenson was fifth and Stephens sixth. 

Last yr a complete of 544 individuals took half within the inaugural championships, with 41 separate classes providing titles. The schedule would be the similar as final yr, with the elite males taking the lengthy course of 131.4 miles with males’s open 19-plus class at 6:30 a.m. native time, then the elite girls taking the identical course alongside girls’s open 19-plus division quarter-hour later. 

A wave of riders throughout a number of age teams, the only velocity division and non-binary division will comply with one other quarter-hour after the elite girls on the lengthy course. Three different distances – 88.2 miles, 56.9 miles, and 24.8 miles – will likely be used for 3 different waves of riders.

All programs will stay the identical as final yr, utilizing 90% dust and gravel roads in western Nebraska, which is able to go well-known rock formations at Scotts Bluff National Monument and Chimney Rock that when served as landmarks for Native Americans and settlers touring west on the Oregon Trail. 

The prize purse for the US Gravel National Championships remains to be among the many prime money payouts for a single day of off-road racing within the US. The highest this yr was Valley of Tears Gravel Bike Race in Turkey, Texas. The first-time March race marketed a $26,000 prize purse, which was doubled to $52,000 the morning of the race,with the proceeds coming from a beneficiant sponsor, and paid 20 deep. SBT GRVL has a $22,000 purse, with winners every incomes $5,000, and payouts going 5 deep.

US Gravel National Championships 2024 schedule