The professional women’s cycling race, the Exergy Tour, held in the Treasure Valley last year won’t be back this year. The title sponsor couldn’t roundup enough financial backing. As a result the Boise based wind energy company – Exergy Development Group- has canceled this year’s race.
Sadie Babits covered the inaugural Tour and talked with Samantha Wright about what this news means. Late last May, thousands of people lined 13th Street in Boise’s Hyde Park to watch the final stage of the inaugural Exergy Tour. A sports announcer reminded the crowd that “big time bike racing is back in Idaho.”
“And that’s what we all thought,” explains Babits. “This race, which followed after a long hiatus from another pro cycling event called the HP Women’s challenge, was back for good. After the Exergy Tour wrapped up, the winner Evelyn Stevens shared her enthusiasm for the event.”
Stevens said “I’m excited to race it next year so hopefully it’s still here.”
James Carkulis, who owns the Exergy Development Group, last year said he planned to have the race back in 2013 and had plans to expand the race.
Samantha: So did this cancelation of the race come as a surprise?
Sadie: Not really because Exergy has been having financial troubles ever since last year. Vendors and supporters were late in getting payments after the tour. A Virginia turbine company sued Exergy over late payments. And the company, Medalist Sports, which operated a smart phone app so people could track the race on their phone said it wasn’t going to be a part of the race again.
I talked with Brian Holcombe. He’s the editor for the cycling website VeloNews.com. He isn’t surprised at all by the news that Exergy Tour has been cancelled this year.
“Last year they fell behind on a number of commitments to cycling” Holcombe said. “They did still pay out roughly $2 million of roughly $4 million in commitments to the sport in the U.S. but they did leave a number of events without payment.”
Sadie: In fact, Exergy really left one major event in the lurch this year when it wasn’t able to pay its $250,000 sponsorship. That was for the Cyclo-Cross World Championships in Kentucky – which almost didn’t happen because of the loss in funding.
Also, Exergy stopped sponsoring its professional men’s team. But the company chalked that up not to money but rather to the fallout from the doping scandal around Lance Armstrong.
Samantha: The company does support a women’s team. What’s the status of that sponsorship?
Sadie: So Exergy does support what’s known as Exergy TWENTY16 and in a statement Friday, the company says it will continue to support the team.
Samantha: I assume this is not good news for the sport. How big of a blow is it?
Sadie: It means that top level women cyclists will have one less big time race to compete at. Women’s cycling is growing but the number of the events to compete is shrinking. Brian Holcombe told me, “The best women racers in the world are finding it more and more difficult to find top level events that they are treated like the professionals that they are to showcase their skills. I wouldn’t say that the loss of the race will impact women’s racing but I will say it’s part of a troubling trend.”
Samantha: So we won’t see the Exergy Tour this year. How about in the future?
Sadie: The company says it plans to bring back the race next year. But when I posed the question to Holcombe, he’s not so sure. He says a lot of times when there’s an announcement like this, it takes more than a year to bring back a race of this caliber.