A few weeks ago we analyzed the early registration trends for the upcoming Grant’s Tomb Criterium as part of a new series of Journal entries that we are calling the Race Director Diaries. With just a handful of days left until the Grant’s Tomb Criterium kicks off we are anxiously watching the weather and monitoring registration trends for this year’s race - which to date remain quite strong. We are going to dive into the numbers in detail below, but if alternatively you want to check out the media content that underscores why Grant’s Tomb Criterium is so great we recommend last year’s race recap or the broader Grant’s Tomb Archives on the Journal (check out the Grant’s Tomb Criterium Guide in particular).

The Grant’s Tomb Criterium Registration Numbers

From a high level, registration trends remain quite strong as CRCA’s Open Racing numbers seem to continue bucking at least some of the participation challenges we discussed a few months ago in our State of the Sport Series. As of Saturday morning when I started crunching the numbers we had 593 registrants for the 2019 edition of the Grant’s Tomb Criterium (all numbers discussed herein exclude race clinic, course preview, and wait list registrants). This is down from 762 registrants last year but with 5 days left in registration we are actually 70 registrants ahead of where we were at this point in time last year. Of course last year’s weather was reasonably cooperative and we saw massive last minute registration. With a more mixed forecast at the moment getting to last year’s numbers may still be a stretch.