Are there any participants in the Lifetime Grand Prix - the 60 m/f riders - that are completely amateur (not paid or sponsored by any company)? I’m curious if it’s been possible for anyone to be competitive without financial or material support.
Bella Hyser is a U23 racer, the youngest in the women’s field, and has a GoFundMe to help cover expenses.
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I’m going to venture a confident guess of “No”… For sure there is a portion of them that have jobs outside of riding their bike, but I’d be willing to bet that of those, most probably work within the industry. Lifetime has a pretty intense application process for the Grand Prix, with a large focus on your marketability and your reach(in that they ask specifics about your social media following). With that, anyone who would be “worthy” of competing in the series will have some sort of sponsorship help. Again, I’d be willing to bet that less than half of the participants are getting a paycheck from their sponsor, but are certainly getting material support and perhaps some reimbursement for race fees and transport. I have zero doubt that there are fully self supported amateurs that could hack it in the front pack of these races, while fully self-funding the season, but it only takes one or two of those results before you have some tire/carb/sunglass company offering you something for free. And then you’re no longer un-sponsored…
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