Life Time, house owners of the Life Time Grand Prix and all six off-road races that comprise the sequence, introduced Thursday {that a} dwell broadcast for the ultimate occasion, Life Time Huge Sugar Gravel offered by Kenetik, can be supplied for the whole lot of the 100-mile race for the primary time.
Huge Sugar Gravel takes place Saturday, October 18, in Bentonville, Arkansas, with elite males beginning at 7:25 a.m. CDT and elite ladies beginning 10 minutes later. The dwell broadcast, offered by Orange Seal, will observe each elite fields starting at 7:10 a.m. CDT and embody post-race interviews. The protection is obtainable on the official Life Time Grand Prix YouTube channel and utilizing the Life Time app, all freed from cost.
The Life Time Grand Prix can pay out a prize purse of $200,000 between the highest 10 males and high 10 ladies, break up evenly, after Huge Sugar Gravel, based mostly on the very best cumulative factors of the perfect 4 of six races. Every of the six races additionally present an extra $30,000 in prize cash this yr, for an extra $180,000 on provide.
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Final yr, Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz) received a 3rd consecutive elite males’s title within the Grand Prix, whereas Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialised Off-road) captured the elite ladies’s general for a second time in three years.
The invitation-only subject on this yr’s Life Time Grand Prix, which earlier within the season included 25 ladies and 25 males, is now all the way down to 23 ladies and 21 males who stay in rivalry for ultimate scoring in 5 of the six occasions, with Huge Sugar Gravel a compulsory race.
Swenson and Villafañe are on the high of the standings headed right into a doubleheader of racing this month in Arkansas – Little Sugar MTB on October 12 and Huge Sugar Gravel six days later. Nonetheless, their leads are precariously tight, with solely two factors separating Swenson from Simon Pellaud and Torbjørn Røed, whereas Villafañe has simply two factors on Cecily Decker.
Additionally anticipated on the beginning line are 2024 Huge Sugar males’s winner Alexey Verneulen, three-time Traka 360 winner Mattia De Marchi, Chequamegon winner Melisa Rollins, and four-time Rad Grime Fest winner Lauren De Crescenzo.
This yr’s Huge Sugar Gravel will cowl 99.6 miles (160.3km) with nearly all of the route utilizing ‘gloriously chunky’ gravel roads, now 5.6 miles (9km) shorter than earlier than however nonetheless shut to six,200 toes (1889 metres) of climbing. Riders will compete on the same clockwise loop by the Ozark Mountains, crossing into southwest Missouri with the beginning/end in Bentonville.
There are two help stations on the lengthy course, each on the Missouri aspect of the loop. Whereas the Pineville Help Station at mile 38 is identical, there’s a new help station at mile 74 at Rockford Grange. That is the adjustment to final yr’s route that goes west of the Flag Spring Conservation Space and twists south for a unique strategy to cross again into Arkansas close to Pea Ridge.
In Might, over 350,000 spectators tuned in to look at a first-time dwell broadcast of Unbound Gravel 200. Life Time adopted in August with one other profitable dwell broadcast of the Leadville Path 100 MTB, and this would be the third race within the sequence to characteristic dwell streaming from begin to end.
Following completion of each Huge Sugar races, there can be a hard and fast end line digital camera by the 12-hour mark so each finisher (each skilled and novice) may be seen finishing the race. Followers may also be capable of watch highlights on the official Life Time Grand Prix YouTube channel on Sunday, October 19.
