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Elite bicycle racing coming to Missouri

Over the past few months, word has been filtering out that Missouri will be getting an elite cycling event -- the Tour of Missouri -- in September 2007.

The Missouri Bicycle Federation first reported that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt's office was actively pursuing the event back in March. In recent weeks, word has leaked out in various outlets: the STLBiking.com fourm, VeloNews and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI, the international governing body of cycling) 2007 calendar of events in North America and South America. On Wednesday, the St. Louis-Post Dispatch reported the event will be Sept. 11-16.

The Missouri Bicycle Racing Association has been working with the governor's office and Medalist Sports, the company that puts on top U.S. events such as the Ford Tour of Georgia and the Amgen Tour of California, in developing the Tour of Missouri. MOBRA President Mike Weiss recently informed me more details about the event should be released next week.

In the past, elite riders such as Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie have riden either in the Tour of Georgia or the Tour of California.

It's great that the state of Missouri has recognized the value of the Tour of Georgia and the Tour of California to those states and wants the same thing for Missouri. A race through Missouri, particularly the southern part of the state, would provide plenty of challenges for elite cyclists. While the hills are short by elite racing standards -- they're plenty long for average cyclists such as myself -- many of them are plenty steep.

Here's hoping the people of Missouri and the rest of the Midwest get behind this race as the people of California and Georgia have gotten behind their races.

Roger 0 comments 8:56 AM