Colorado Classic Postpones Women’s Cycling Race to 2022

The Colorado Classic presented by VF Corporation, an elite women’s cycling race, has canceled its 2021 race and will focus on bringing the multistage race event back in 2022.

The inaugural race was staged in 2019 across four Colorado destinations, but organizers canceled the 2020 event after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the situation remaining uncertain this year, organizers opted to hold off one more year before trying again.

“In 2020, we spent months working tirelessly in conjunction with state, county and city organizations, health authorities and the sports governing bodies to come up with a COVID mitigation plan that would ensure the health and safety for everyone,” said Ken Gart, chairman of RPM Events Group, the event organizers. “In the end, the most prudent decision was still to cancel the event. With the current situation being just as uncertain as it was last year, we don’t think it makes sense — financial or otherwise — to organize a 2021 event and risk another cancellation.

“This is not an easy decision to make. We know that this race holds an important place on both the domestic and international race calendars, and we remain committed to our goal of being the best women’s race in the world. But we hope that by delaying the event to 2022, the pandemic will have stabilized and we’ll be able to secure the necessary financial partners to do our event justice and host another game-changing, world-class event as we did in 2019.”

When it launched in 2019, the Colorado Classic became the only standalone UCI women’s stage race in North America. With a 2.1 UCI category designation, and it garnered worldwide attention and was considered a success by organizers.