VAIL AND AVON SELECTED TO BE STAGES OF INAUGURAL USA PRO CHALLENGE IN AUGUST OF 2011: Major international road bike racing will return to the Vail Valley August 25 and 26 as both Vail and Avon have been selected as stage components of the inaugural USA Pro Challenge cycling event. The announcement came at a press conference on the steps of the State Capitol in Denver on Thursday, November 4.
Created to be the most challenging pro-cycling race in American history, the USA Pro Challenge is set to cover nearly 600 miles of the region’s demanding terrain.
Vail and Avon will join nine other Colorado cities in hosting the 2011 USA Pro Challenge, which has been scheduled for August 22-28. Vail is slated to host a Time Trial on August 25, while Avon will serve as the start of the stage that will take riders to Steamboat on August 26. The overall route of the 11-city inaugural stage race is expected to be announced in early 2011.
“This is tremendous news for the Vail Valley,” explained Ceil Folz, president of the Vail Valley Foundation. “We have worked extremely hard over the past four years to help bring a major cycling event back to Colorado and have the Vail Valley included. We thank our partners in this effort, the Town of Vail and the Town of Avon, and look forward to working together with all of our community to host two great stages of the USA Pro Challenge cycling event next summer.”
Spearheaded by seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, the USA Pro Challenge was created to revive the legacy of the Colorado-based Coors International Bicycle Classic. The new race will be similar to the Coors Classic, with a mix of mountain, sprint and downtown stages.
In addition to Vail, Avon and Steamboat, other inaugural USA Pro Challenge cities include Aspen, Breckenridge, Colorado Springs, Crested Butte, Denver, Golden, Gunnison and Salida. The Vail and Avon stages will be coordinated and hosted by the Vail Valley Foundation, the Town of Vail and the Town of Avon, along with additional interested individuals and organizations throughout the valley.
Vail served as the site of annual criterium and time trial races for the Coors Classic from 1978-1988. The Coors Classic became the fourth largest cycling event in the world behind the Vuelta de Espana, Giro d’Italia and Tour de France.
Although professional road cycling left the valley in 1988, the Vail Valley Foundation brought international mountain bike racing to the valley with the 1992 UCI World Cup Finals, while also securing the 1994 and 2001 World Mountain Bike Championships. In between, the valley also played host to five World Cup Mountain Bike events in anticipation of both World Championships.
To keep in touch with the latest news and updates on the USA Pro Challenge, visit www.usaprocyclingchallenge.com/.
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THE 2011 USA PRO CHALLENGE STAGES:
August 22 – Stage 1, Prologue time trial, Colorado Springs
August 23 – Stage 2, Salida to Crested Butte, mountain-top finish
August 24 – Stage 3, Gunnison to Aspen, mountain stage
August 25 – Stage 4, Vail, time trail, former Coors Classic stage
August 26 – Stage 5, Avon to Steamboat Springs
August 27 – Stage 6, Steamboat Springs to Breckenridge
August 28 – Stage 7, Golden to Denver
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The USA Pro Cycling Challenge will feature the best of the best in professional cycling. Currently there are 11 teams confirmed to compete in the inaugural 2011 competition. They include UCI Pro Teams Saxo Bank-Sungard (Denmark), Team RadioShack (USA), HTC-Highroad (USA), Team Garmin-Cervélo (USA), BMC Racing Team (USA), Liquigas-Cannondale (Italy) and Leopard Trek (Luxembourg), and UCI Professional Continental teams UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team (USA), Team Type 1-sanofi aventis (USA), Skil-Shimano (Netherlands) and Team Spidertech Powered By C10 (Canada).
These teams include some of the most exciting riders in the world, including the world’s top stage racer and reigning Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, world champion Thor Hushovd, former world champion, two time-second place Tour de France winner, Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans and Olympic gold medalist Fabian Cancellara. In total, the USA Pro Cycling Challenge will host 128 professional cyclists from 16 teams August 22-28, 2011. Specific riders who will participate in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge will be named at the end of July.
Learn more about these teams by visiting the following websites:
Saxo
Garmin
HTC
Radioshack
BMC
Leopard Trek
Liquigas-Cannondale
Unitedhealthcare
Team Type 1
Spidertech
Skil-Shimano
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