Originally published at: Life Time Pulls Back and Extends in 2025 for Grand Prix - Slowtwitch News
Life Time announced key changes to their 2025 Grand Prix Series today. While the events arm of the company is reducing the race series, it is simultaneously listening to professional athletes, partners, and logistics team to go deeper.
The 2025 Grand Prix will kick off, like usual, at the key industry event, Sea Otter, on April 11th, 2025. Athletes will then have a total of six events to collect their top 5 results for series scoring points. There will be an even 3/3 split on gravel and mountain bike events. We are still waiting on prize money details for 2025 and will update as soon as we can confirm. Ultimately the 2025 Grand Prix is still putting gravel, its pros, and its “spirit” on the map.
The 2025 events are as follows:
- Life Time Sea Otter Classic Gravel presented by Continental
- Life Time Unbound Gravel 200
- Life Time Leadville Trail 100 MTB presented by Kenetik
- Life Time Chequamegon Mountain Bike Festival
- Life Time Little Sugar MTB
- Life Time Big Sugar Gravel
Notably, two key events are no longer included in the Grand Prix. Those are Crusher in the Tushar and the Rad Dirt Fest. However, Life Time remains committed to those two events and expects to grow them in a different manner.
The details on the points system for 2025 will be announced soon. Here’s what we do know:
- Only the 22 men and 22 women selected before the first event will appear on the leaderboard before Unbound.
- After Unbound, the leaderboard will be updated and rescored to:
- Remove any athletes’ points who drop from the series through Life Time Unbound
- Include selected Wild Card athletes’ results for Sea Otter and Unbound.
- After the completion of the 4th event, each athletes’ lowest scored race will be removed from the scoring to reflect their “drop” race. This will give the most accurate standings going into the last event.
Here are some of the key rules and regulations for professional athletes for next year’s racing.
- 25 men and 25 women will be selected for the 2025 Life Time Grand Prix
- 22 men and 22 women will be selected and announced on 11/7/2024
- 6 Wild Card spots (3 Men and 3 Women) will be announced after Unbound Gravel on May 31, 2025. To be selected for a Wild Card, athletes will have had to have applied for the 2025 LTGP and compete in the 2025 editions of Sea Otter and Unbound Gravel 200.
- Additional wild card spots, above the 6 mentioned above, may open up if any of the 22 men and 22 women drop out. These additional wild card spots will be determined by Life Time.
- All prospective participants must fill out the application between October 14, 2024 and October 28 at 11:59 PST order to be considered.
- Crucially, the 2025 LTGP will have no auto acceptance.
Every event in the Life Time Grand Prix series will provide separate starts for the respective elite fields. Participants must start 5 of the 6 events in order to be eligible for an overall prize — so it will truly require showing up to all of the events. Example – if you start only 4 events of the series, you are not eligible for Life Time Grand Prix prize money (DNFs will hurt your standing in the series, but will not disqualify you from the series). Athletes will be removed from the series standings as soon as they become ineligible.
The final event in the series, Life Time Big Sugar Gravel, will be mandatory for all and serve as a tiebreaker. Athletes in the series are also required to attend the awards ceremony. This includes both event podiums and the overall 2025 Life Time Grand Prix awards ceremony.
Athletes must also attend a minimum of two fan engagement activations throughout the series. Fan engagement activations are pre or post-race events, such as a spin out ride or autograph session, that enable an interaction between fan and athlete. It’s one way to ensure that there is more of a collective community experience between elite and age group athletes.
Personally, I think this is not only smart for Life Time but also brilliant for the industry and professional athletes. It is tough to get to events these days. This also allows them some breathing room in the middle of the season. While pro athletes are only losing one event from the series, they are losing two events they have to travel to from an activation and race perspective.