Sofia Gomez Villafani (specialized off-road) and Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycle) dominated the second edition of the Lifetime Grand Prix announced by Mazda and officially crowned the champion of the Seven race off-road series after completing the finale with the Big Sugar Gravel on Saturday. It was.

The battle for points in the Lifetime Grand Prix field culminated after a race of 25,000 miles and elevation gains of over 680 feet, when Villafañe and Swenson converted scores to scores59,000, respectively.

total250,000 total prize wallets were distributed evenly among top 10 professional women and top 10 professional Men Dust settled in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Organizers announced that the prize purse will increase to increase300,000 in 2024 for the invite-only field of 30 professional women and 30 professional men, down from 35 in each category this year. According to a statement from Life Time, "The exact payment scheme is still being determined."

The Top 10 make-up for professional women was remodeled at the end of the Big Sugar Gravel, but the top 10 for men saw the biggest change. This year's rider scores were aggregated from the best results in 7 out of 5 events, and athletes were given the option to race 5 events or compete on a full schedule and throw a lower score.

Matthew Beers, the 7th in the series, entered Big Sugar and Zach Calton, the 8th in the series, dropped out of the top 10. For Calton, it was hard because he became a casualty in the Big Sugar tiebreaker. He finished in 14th place with a 20-second delay, and the Swiss champion secured a tiebreaker bonus in his 19th place and final top 10 position of the series.

Beer, who finished second to Swenson a week ago at Little Sugar MTB, did not finish Saturday's gravel event, so the fifth race finish Johnston was 7th overall and Alex Howes was 3rd. Howard Grotz also moved from the 12th to the 9th.

In the Women's Top 10, Jenna Reinhart and Paige Onweller leapt 2 spots, with 6th and 7th place respectively earning more thanド2,000. Crystal Anthony was 8th, Hannah Otto was 9th and Diana Meyers was 10th.

Overall winners Villafañe and Swenson won the opening round at Lea Otter Classic Fuego XL, took the series lead in the invite-only field of 70 riders and continued to earn top Grand Prix points at Unbound Gravel200, Tushar's Crusher and Leadville Trail 100MTB.

Swenson won overall in all of these 4 events and in the process set new course records for both Crusher and Leadville. He finished 2nd in the Chequamegon MTB and won the first U.S. Gravel National title he wore with Big Sugar after winning his 2nd overall win in the series. Alexey Vermeulen, who won Chequamegon and Rad Dirt Fest, took 2nd place overall. Cole Paton was third, Russell Finsterwald fourth, Lachlan Morton fifth and Peter Stetina sixth.

Villafañe won 3 races in the first half of the series and won a women's course record at Crusher. Since she finished in 200th place in the unrestricted gravel after Germany's Carolyn Schiff, who was not part of the series, the Argentine rider was locked in her overall title with a finish of 2nd place in the series she then 3rd place in Chequamegon. Alexis Skarda was 2nd overall and Haley Smith was 3rd in last year's winner. Sarah Sturm won the Ladd Dirt Fest and was late charged by Lauren de Crescenzo, who won the Big Sugar.

Next year's lineup for the Grand Prix will include the same event, four gravel and three mountain bikes – Fuego XL at Sea Otter, Unbound Gravel, Crusher at Tuchar, Leadville Trail100MTB, Chequamegon MTB Festival, Rad Dirt Fest, Big Sugar Gravel. All of these races offer a separate start for elite women and elite men.

The application process for the invitation-only field is open until 10/25. The new for the third edition is that the top 15 finishers from this season automatically qualify.