Cowl Photograph: SnowyMountain Images
USA Biking Professional Highway Might 14-19
Charleston is gearing up for an additional busy yr as a serious sports activities tourism vacation spot. After internet hosting three worldwide sporting occasions in 2023, the town welcomes the USA Biking Skilled Highway Nationwide Championships Might 14-19, 2024. Prime-tier rivals from greater than 40 states and territories, together with Olympians, World Tour professionals, and rising stars are anticipated to compete in three totally different programs: Time Trials, Criterium, and Highway Race. Charleston will host the occasion for 5 years, with the winners of the Elite Males’s and Girls’s Time Trial occasions in 2024 and 2028 robotically qualifying for the Olympic Video games.
Officers with the Charleston Conference & Guests Bureau (CVB) anticipate this yr’s occasion will draw greater than 500 athletes, in addition to group workers, households, and biking fanatics.
“For six days, Charleston would be the heart of the biking universe. Riders from across the nation, together with media, followers, and fanatics, will stroll and experience our streets, take pleasure in our thriving culinary scene, and soak up West Virginia’s high cultural vacation spot. As we put together to roll out the welcome mat, we’re additionally recruiting volunteers to assist exhibit Charleston as a welcoming vacation spot.”
A wave of nostalgia hit the town when the Professional Highway Championships had been introduced. Longtime residents bear in mind the Kmart Traditional of West Virginia, which was one of many nation’s most prestigious highway occasions within the Nineteen Nineties. That multi-day, stage race toured 500-plus miles by means of West Virginia and launched followers to 21-year-old Lance Armstrong, who gained the race in 1993.
Eric Showalter remembers when the Kmart Traditional handed by means of Beckley.
“Rising up in southern West Virginia, biking was considered one of my hobbies, and when the Kmart Traditional got here by means of within the Nineteen Nineties, I noticed and met Lance Armstrong – in my very own hometown,” Showalter stated.
Assembly Armstrong and different world-class cyclists fueled Showalter’s love for the game, a leisure exercise he nonetheless enjoys as we speak. Now, as a longtime Charleston resident and member of the Native Organizing Committee for the Professional Highway Championships, Showalter stated he’s excited to share Charleston’s biking secrets and techniques with the world.
“West Virginia’s biking neighborhood is aware of how wonderful the terrain right here is and the way difficult and rewarding it may be. We get to share that with the world for the subsequent 5 years, and we’re pumped!” Showalter stated.
Brady stated an occasion of this dimension will current alternatives for neighborhood involvement and volunteers. He asks anybody fascinated about serving to with the Professional Highway Nationwide Championships to go to the CVB’s USA Biking web page.
