When Cyclingnews spoke to Brendan Johnston the month before the UCI Gravel World Championships, it was clear the decision on whether or not he could bring himself to miss a home rainbow jersey race was a tough one, made even harder as he won the test event on the course.
The Giant rider also looked like Australia’s best chance in the men’s elite race, but the long-planned Nannup event clashes with a round of the Life Time Grand Prix Series, where he is sitting tied in second place and which provides his livelihood – in fact, it was the whole reason he could finally turn pro as a bike racer.
“I still haven’t decided where I where I’ll be on that weekend,” Johnston told Cyclingnews at the start of September. “It’s been on my mind since the start of the year.”
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“It would be a feel-good decision, I think, to be able to represent there [at the World Championships],” he said, though not necessarily a good financial or professional decision.
There was no support available through the national federation to get him there, yet it’s a race where he would be wearing national colours, not those of his sponsors – who were supportive of him going wherever he chose – plus there is also no prize money on offer, as well as the huge financial outlay required not just to get there but also to get his own support crew there as well.
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Stack that up against his chance for putting the sponsors on display as he heads toward a best-ever Life Time series result at Little Sugar MTB on October 11 – where the prize money is substantial, and the continued success in the series offers a clear means of continuing the racing career he has worked so hard to secure and waited for so long – and it’s probably no surprise what his decision was. But it’s equally clear how hard it was to make it, with the clash of the calendars putting the rider in the most challenging of positions.
“I really wish these two races weren’t on the same day,” he said in an Instagram post announcing that he wouldn’t be in Nannup and explaining why.
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“There’s been plenty said about me ‘chasing the money’ by making this decision. For me, that misses the point. This is about my career and the goals I set when I embarked on this professional gravel racing journey several years ago. I’ve never been in this position in the LTGP before, and I owe it to myself, my team and everyone who has supported this journey to give the overall everything I have.”
He isn’t alone either in choosing to race Little Sugar. None of the Life Time Grand Prix riders from Australia will be on the start line in Nannup, with fellow Australian Courtney Sherwell on the Little Sugar start list as well, along with New Zealand’s Samara Sheppard, Unbound winner Cameron Jones and Matthew Wilson, who is currently sitting fourth on the Life Time leaderboard, just two points behind the tied Johnston and Bradyn Lange.
There are some others from the series, however, making the trip; as in the six-round event, one can be dropped – as long as it is not a compulsory round like season-ender Big Sugar. Most notably is a group of Specialized Off-Road teammates that includes the two biggest figures in the race, Keegan Swenson and Sofia Gomez Villafañe.
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Both are currently sitting at the top of the leaderboard and have three overall Life Time victories to their name already.
“I’ve been really committed to the Life Time Grand Prix,” Villafañe told Cyclingnews in pre-race interview. “Knowing the past two years the [Worlds] courses really didn’t suit me, we thought the courses in Australia might.”
Matt Beers will also be going, though after also missing Chequamegon already, that means he will be out of the series.
“There is a clash in those timings but again, we still have seen people travelling here,” race director Stephen Gallagher told Cyclingnews. “I think the World Championship stripes still hold a worth, even for those riders that come from the Lifetime Grand Prix, who have a very very real chance of winning it, and then will potentially take that World Championship jersey to America.”
They include gravel specialists that have in recent years chosen not to go to the race, though with a course heavy on gravel and elevation gain and light on the normal flood of WorldTour riders – that get good start grid positions based on their 50% portion of road points – the opportunity seemed too good to miss.
Which perhaps makes it even more difficult for riders like Johnston to not be there because Little Sugar was scheduled on the same day as the long-mapped-out UCI Gravel World Championships.
“I understand that they don’t care about the UCI and I guess it kind of hurts some of the riders a bit, but at the end of the day they’re building their own thing,” Johnston told Cyclingnews.
Plus, the lack of consideration of co-ordination on the calendars can go both ways, with Johnston also falling foul of another calendar clash this year when Australia’s national cycling federation decided to schedule the Australian Championships on the same weekend as the most revered of gravel races, the non-UCI event of Unbound.
It’s a situation that has had an impact on both events, the UCI Gravel World Championships not having key players from the host nation like Johnston, and the Life Time Grand Prix having a penultimate round that will see both its series leaders, in Swenson and Villafañe, opting out.
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