USA Crits Series is back for 13th year with three new races

USA Crits will return in 2019 with three new events to bolster the season-long US criterium series. 

Next year's USA Crits Series will feature the new Birmingham HammerFest, a preseason event in Birmingham, Alabama. The series-proper will open with the inaugural Destination El Paso Criterium in Texas, and the Salt Lake Criterium joins the Series as another new event. The Saint Francis Tulsa Tough's Blue Dome criterium in Oklahoma will also return after a several-year hiatus.

Organisers have invited 24 of America’s elite men’s and women’s teams to participate in the seires, which will focus on the participating "D1" programs that will be announced on January 17.

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“It is exciting to see three brand-new events join the Series for 2019,” said Scott Morris, USA Crits director of development. "We started 2018 with a goal of creating a more sustainable model for American road cycling and made great progress in that effort. We streamed more races than had ever been done in America. We saw an 11 per cent participation increase in our events and created a new platform to allow a broader audience to engage the sport."

The Series will continue to focus on a more team-oriented model in 2019, according to organisers, who say there will be a priority on supporting the growth of more teams racing a national calendar through travel stipends, entries and increased support from events for the D1 teams. There will also be expanded coverage of both teams and events via all media formats.

All USA Crits Series events will be live streamed on USACRITS.tv. Not only will subscribing fans have access to the event streams, but video-on-demand content will include D1 team and rider profiles, race recap, and full-length archived series races.

2019 USA Crits Series Calendar

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com