DENVER, Aug. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The
$10,000 raised during the bonus cash
lap Friday during the Colorado Classic® presented by VF Corporation
is believed to far exceed any cash lap in women's pro cycling
history and possibly exceeds any single payout for a sprint lap in
pro cycling in general.
Each stage of this year's Classic includes a bonus cash lap,
also known in cycling as a "prime." The race seeds $1,000 as a minimum bonus and additional
donations are crowd-sourced by fans via an innovative
text-to-donate system (for Stage 3, text "GoldenCo" to 797979 and
for Stage 4, "Denver" to 797979),
with half going to the fastest sprinter in the lap and half going
to a local charity. During Stage 2 - Avon presented by FirstBank on Friday, an
unprecedented $10,000 was raised,
split between lap winner Jennifer
Valente (Sho-Air TWENTY20) and the Chris Anthony Youth
Initiative Project, a charity founded by professional skier and
former competitive cyclist Chris
Anthony with a mission to provide educational enrichment
opportunities for children.
"I wanted to raise the largest cash lap ever in women's pro
cycling," Anthony said after Friday's race, adding that a total of
68 individuals/entities donated to the lap. "The prime lap gives
the race that double hit of excitement. You get the audience
engaged and create an extra charge of energy among the racers. It's
like a race within a race."
The $10,000 generated in Friday's
bonus cash lap also exceeds the overall prize purse of many major
women's races. Offering an overall prize purse of $75,000, the 2019 Colorado Classic already ranks
among the top-paying races in women's professional cycling.
"In my 35 years in the sport, I've never heard of a mid-race
prime of that level," said Colorado Classic Race Director
Sean Petty. "A lot of prize lists
for big races don't come close to that. The Tour of Flanders, a
World Tour race and one of the monuments of cycling, pays about
1,300 Euros. The winner of the Giro
Rosa, the 10-day stage race and probably the most difficult women's
stage race, gets 5,000 Euros for the
whole race."
Valente has competed for primes in other races, but had never
earned anything close to $5,000 for a
single lap. She said the fire fueled by Friday's bonus lap was
palpable within the peloton.
"I think it's a really cool way to get the crowd involved and
feel they're adding to the excitement of the race. Today it
definitely was," Valente said after the race. "It was a way for
everyone to be involved in that excitement. It gets the people
watching excited and it makes the sprints quicker. More people were
going for that sprint because of the prime and not just for the
sprint points. It goes to show how involved the sponsors and fans
are in supporting this event and really rallying behind the
women."
As racing continues today with Stage 3 in Golden, the fourth of the seven high-speed
laps will serve as the bonus cash lap, with half of the generated
sum going to local charity Golden Giddyup, a local mountain bike
race and festival and subsidiary of the Jeffco Outdoors Foundation,
which uses funding for stewardship work in Jefferson County Open
Space parks and trails. Go here to donate to the Stage 3 Golden
bonus cash lap and go here to donate to Stage 4 in Denver.
The 2019 Colorado Classic® presented by VF Corporation is the
only 2.1 UCI-ranked women's standalone pro road race in the Western
Hemisphere. Nearly 100 of the world's best racers from 16 teams are
competing in the four-stage race over challenging, iconic
Colorado mountain and urban
terrain Aug 22-25.
Those who can't watch the race in person can watch live
streaming coverage from start to finish and follow statistics and
race progress by downloading Tour Tracker.
SOURCE Colorado Classic