The principle rosters for the invitation-only 2025 Life Time Grand Prix had been revealed immediately, with an intensive choice of new worldwide challengers making the lower to unseat three-time males’s collection champion Keegan Swenson and two-time girls’s winner Sofia Gomez Villafane.
Headliners on the boys’s aspect are three-time The Traka 360 winner Mattia De Marchi (Italy) and former WorldTour street professionals Lawrence Naesen (Belgium), Tsgabu Grmay (Ethiopia) and Simon Pellaud (Switzerland).
Six feminine riders will make debuts within the Grand Prix subsequent yr, with the lead-off occasion at a brand new Sea Otter Basic Gravel race on April 11 in Monterey, California. Among the many worldwide riders are reigning Australian gravel champion Courtney Sherwell and British gravel champion Annabel Fisher in addition to Oregon Path Gravel stage winner Axelle Dubau-Prévot (France).
Drawing from a whole bunch of candidates representing 23 international locations, the preliminary choice for 2025 contains 22 girls and 22 males who will compete within the six-race, off-road race collection with a season-ending prize purse of $280,000 shared among the many prime 10 in every division. A further three girls and three males can be added as wildcard athletes following outcomes from Unbound Gravel 200 on Could 31, 2025.
Final yr 30 elite girls and 30 elite males had been invited to participate within the collection, with the highest 10 in every class sharing in a $300,000 prize purse. All the prime 10 from final yr’s girls’s ultimate standings return for one more yr of off-road racing. All three riders from the boys’s ultimate podium, Swenson, Matthew Beers and Payson McElveen, return in 2025.
Riders not returning for one more version of the collection embrace veterans Peter Stetina, Lachlan Morton, Petr Vakoc, Lance Haidet, and Alex Howes. Additionally absent this time are Carter Anderson, Sean Fincham, Andrew L’Esperance, Konny Looser, Tasman Nankervis, Jack Odron, Logan Owen, Jordan Schleck, Nathan Spratt and Kyle Trudeau.
A number of of those fixtures from previous seasons on the Grand Prix, together with Stetina, didn’t submit purposes. Stetina mentioned he was searching for new gravel-specific adventures in his “waning years” as a rider, and would nonetheless compete at three occasions on the collection calendar.
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“The Grand Prix is superior. It has actually elevated North American biking to the forefront of a self-discipline once more, and that is wonderful,” the 37-year-old advised Cyclingnews, noting the collection was skewing in the direction of mountain bike riders and he most well-liked to concentrate on gravel.
“For me, the collection does not make sense. It has been a very enjoyable course of in being one of many names in these first generations of the Grand Prix. If I am unburdened by chasing a collection solely, then the door opens to all these different notable gravel races that I have not gotten to but, or which are cropping up. There’s a variety of cool occasions on the market.”
On the ladies’s aspect absentees from invited riders to begin this previous season embrace Crystal Anthony, Ellen Campbell, Anna Hicks, Heather Jackson, Kristen Legan, Sarah Max, Kate McLaughlin, Peta Mullens, Kate McLaughlin, Emily Newsom, Dani Shrosbree, Lauren Stephens, Caroline Troy, Leah van der Linden and Anna Yamauchi.
“Sadly, UCI Gravel World Championships modified their date and it now conflicts with the ultimate LTGP occasion. I hope to be at most of the Life Time occasions,” Stephens advised Cyclingnews, saying she didn’t submit an utility based mostly on the conflicts together with her anticipated calendar.
Stephens has been the highest US girls’s finisher in any respect three editions of the UCI Gravel World Championships together with sixth in 2023. Subsequent yr’s world championships for gravel can be in Good, France on October 18-19. The Life Time Grand Prix concludes that very same weekend in Bentonville, Arkansas with Large Sugar Gravel, a required occasion for riders contending within the general standings.
Throughout the utility course of, athletes had been requested in the event that they wish to be a part of a wildcard pool if not chosen. These candidates can be thought of for the ultimate three spots in every division on the finish of Could, with their outcomes from Sea Otter Basic Gravel and Unbound Gravel 200 considered. Moreover, ought to an athlete inside the initially chosen 44 athletes drop out of the collection between now and Unbound Gravel, his or her spot could be backfilled by a wildcard athlete.
“The fourth season of the Life Time Grand Prix, constructing on three years of momentum, is ready to carry a complete new degree of competitors. We’re excited to announce the 2025 athlete roster with a mixture of new and returning expertise throughout each the boys’s and girls’s fields,” Kimo Seymour, senior vice chairman of Life Time Occasions, mentioned.
“We proceed to raise the collection’ international profile and improve engagement amongst gravel and mountain bike racing followers each within the US and all over the world; in consequence, we’re thrilled to share that this yr’s cohort of racers is essentially the most worldwide but.”
Life Time Grand Prix roster 2025
Elite girls
- Crystal Anthony (USA)
- Ellen Campbell (USA)
- Lauren De Crescenzo (USA)
- Cecily Decker (USA)
- Axelle Dubau-Prevot (France)
- Annabel Fisher (Nice Britain)
- Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Argentina)
- Stella Hobbs (USA)
- Erin Huck (USA)
- Sarah Lange (USA)
- Cécile Lejeune (USA)
- Deanna Mayles (USA)
- Paige Onweller (USA)
- Hannah Otto (USA)
- Hayley Preen (South Africa)
- Jenna Rinehart (USA)
- Melisa Rollins (USA)
- Samara Sheppard (New Zealand)
- Courtney Sherwell (Australia)
- Alexis Skarda (USA)
- Haley Smith (Canada)
- Michaela Thompson (USA)
Elite males
- Matthew Beers (South Africa)
- John Borstelmann (USA)
- Zach Calton (USA)
- Mattia De Marchi (Italy)
- Hugo Drechou (France)
- Griffin Easter (USA)
- Sean Fincham (Canada)
- Russell Finsterwald (USA)
- Tsgabu Grmay (Ethiopia)
- Howard Grotts (USA)
- Finn Gullickson (USA)
- Dylan Johnson (USA)
- Brendan Johnston (Australia)
- Bradyn Lange (USA)
- Payson McElveen (USA)
- Lawrence Naesen (Belgium)
- Cole Paton (USA)
- Simon Pellaud (Switzerland)
- Torbjørn Andre Røed (Norway)
- Keegan Swenson (USA)
- Alexey Vermeulen (USA)
- Alex Wild (USA)
