Tour of Utah canceled for third year in a row

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Yesterday Medalist Sports announced the Tour of Utah cycling race is canceled for 2022. 

Medalist Sports, the event organizer and a Georgia-based company, said in a statement “it will no longer pursue planning efforts for 2022 and has requested of USA Cycling and the UCI to have the event removed from the international cycling calendar.” 

Chris Aronhalt, owner and president of Medalist Sports, said “On-going and host community discussions have been positive; however, not strong enough to support a viable effort to meet our collective expectations.” 

The Tour was also canceled in 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tour attracted professional cyclists from around the world. 

Vicki Varela, the managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism, said the event will be sorely missed. Since the tour was broadcasted, she said it shared Utah with the world. 

“It was a huge reputational asset that we will miss having because, yes, you had views of the riders biking. But just like the Tour de France, you got enticed by all the amazing natural wonders around them,” she said.

Varela said the tour contributed to Utah’s tourism industry, but she does not think the loss will significantly hurt Utah’s economy.

“Because the Utah tourism economy is so big and so diverse, I don’t anticipate a huge drop in the visitor economy,” she said.

Varela said she will miss going out to watch riders during the tour. She said whenever she went, she found herself surrounded by thousands of people, Utahns and people who traveled from out-of-state for the tour.

“It created so much community pride that the amazing international cyclists were on our roads, our streets, touring our town,” she said. 

The statement did not say what will happen to the tour in 2023.