Hundreds of amateur gravel riders can now look forward to matching pedal strokes and fueling strategies at Life Time Unbound Gravel with an Olympic gold medalist as Greg Van Avermaet confirmed he received his confirmation for entry into this year’s signature 200-mile event.
Even Van Avermaet had to apply through the lottery process, his email arriving late in the evening in Belgium with a ‘Congratulations Greg, you’re IN’. It will be his first time racing in Kansas.
Hanging up the road cleats in 2023 did not mean that the Rio Olympic Games road champion was done with racing, and now he’ll get to prove his diverse abilities at Unbound Gravel 200 come June 1.
The 38-year-old proved he is as versatile as ever on any surface, riding to fourth overall at the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships in 2022, and just two weeks, after retiring from an 18-year pro road career, he won SGRAIL100, a gravel triathlon in Spain, which covered a 1,500-metre swim, 88km gravel ride and 10.5km trail run.
“I’m doing Unbound because I like the idea of the race, of course. It was not possible to make the combination with my road career because the schedule was full, so I was looking forward to it after my [road] career. The best way to do it, I think, is directly after because then at least you have a little bit of shape,” Van Avermaet told Cyclingnews after receiving his entry for Unbound.
“I’m looking forward to doing stuff like this. I will do some gravel races this year, see how it feels and do stuff I could not do during my road career, some off-road, triathlon maybe. I will have some fun, and of course, it will hurt a little bit in the legs, but it will be cool.”
Besides being an Olympic champion, Van Avermaet has won Paris-Roubaix, Gent-Wevelgem and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the latter twice. He has raced in North America a few times during his road career, with several appearances on the podium at Grand Prix Montréal, including a win in 2019 as well as a stage runner-up at the 2016 Tour of California and multiple podiums in 2013 at the Tour of Utah and USA Pro Challenge. For now, the bulk of his gravel pursuits will be based near his family and home in Europe.
“I will do some races on the European calendar, some from the Gravel Earth Series and the UCI series. For the moment, [Unbound] is the only one that is planned in the US. We’ll see,” he added.
The popularity of Unbound Gravel has seen many Europeans make the long trek to discover what the Kansas Flint Hills are…
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