| (Photo: Craig Wells)
After winning Garmin Gravel Worlds 150 two weeks ago, Lauren Stephens took the first-ever national gravel title this past weekend. The EF Education-Tibco-SVB rider—who’s team is disbanding at the end of the season over sponsorship issues—finished the 131-mile race in Nebraska in 6:45:33.
The win earns her spot at UCI Gravel Worlds in Italy next month.
But, wait, what, is that a different worlds championship? Nationals was after worlds, but also before worlds?
We agree, it’s a bit confusing. Last year, UCI hosted its first world championship gravel race—which was somewhat criticized for not being that much of a “real” gravel race. Also, gravel had a whole identity crisis around whether it even wanted a UCI-backed world championship and a UCI-backed World Series calendar. And whether or not all of that was against the “spirit” of gravel.
Gravel Worlds, in Nebraska, is instead a big gravel race that’s been around since 2010 and has no intention of changing its copyrighted name. You win a pirate sword at Gravel Worlds (like, an actual one, they have to mail it to you) and you win a rainbow jersey at the UCI Gravel World Championship.
And, this year, USA Cycling decided to get in on the growth of gravel cycling and host a first-ever national championship race with its first-ever prize purse. Winning gets your travel funded to the UCI Gravel World Championship, too.
UCI Gravel World Championship (not the other race known as Gravel Worlds) will take place on Oct. 7-8 this year. A location in Italy was just announced—but course details are still TBA.
LISTEN: Girls Gone Gravel podcast
3. Meet the fastest American teen at the 800m & 1500m
Addy Wiley is just 19 years old. Last week, on Monday, she ran 1:57.64 in the 800m. And then on Friday, she ran a 3:59.17 in the 1500m (which makes her the 16th American woman to break four minutes and the youngest to do so). And the only American woman who has run the 800m faster younger is current Olympic champ Athing Mu.
She also, remarkably, is a cancer survivor and is raising money for kids with cancer.
But, the running community has been somewhat muted in its praise because of the young runner’s continued association with Nick and Lauren Johnson at Huntington University in Indiana. In short: Nick has been banned for life by SafeSport and pled guilty to a felony charge of identity deception (but the charges of child abduction and kidnapping for taking a teenager to Oregon on a fake recruiting trip were dropped). He admitted to sexual relationships with students at the university—and one of them accused him of rape. He was also accused of doping athletes without their knowledge. (Fast Women has covered this at length.)
The problem is Wiley grew up in Huntington and started being coached by the couple when she was in high school—definitely no fault of her own. She, however, continued to be coached by them and made a last-minute decision not to attend the University of Colorado but stay at home and go to Huntington instead.
While the coaches at the school have now changed and it’s not clear how connected she still is to Lauren or Nick, it all makes it tougher to cheer Wiley on. And it’s resulted in a lot of accusations and internet criticism that has to be hard for a 19-year-old.
READ: The full original investigation into the culture of doping and sexual abuse at the small Christian college
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