Trek Bicycle and Helen Wyman have teamed up to create a Junior Women’s 17-18 Cyclocross race that will be run in conjunction with the UCI-mandated Junior Men’s 17-18 race on Friday, September 20th, 2019. While the UCI mandates that every World Cup host a junior men’s race, there is no such mandate for junior women yet.

In accordance with Trek’s commitment to equity, both the men’s and women’s junior races will feature equal payout. In 2017, Trek became the first host of a World Cup cyclocross event to offer equal payouts to the men’s and women’s elite fields, and is still the only one to do so today.

Recently retired cyclocross legend Helen Wyman was the catalyst for the effort, contacting Trek about the opportunity to host a junior women’s race at the Trek CX Cup as part of the Helen100. The Helen100 was created to lower the barrier of entry to competitive cycling for young women by paying cyclocross race entry fees for young women across the racing landscape and has already resulted in record numbers of female junior participants in Great Britain, Wyman’s home country.

“When Helen let us know about this discrepancy and her efforts to close the gap, we were immediately in,” stated Trek Race Shop Manager Scott Daubert. “A lot of progress has been made to improve racing for all athletes but there are still opportunities to do better.”

“Trek has been a leader in equality in Women’s cycling for a longtime and I knew that this would be a natural fit for their event. I’m really looking forward to attending this year’s World Cup and hope to see another great crowd in Waterloo,” said Wyman.

Registration is open now for all races at the Trek CX Cup featuring World Cup Waterloo with the event set for September 20-22 at Trek Bicycle’s Waterloo, WI headquarters. More information can be found at trekcxcup.com.