Jones and Gómez Villafañe secure Life Time Grand Prix series titles
Big Sugar Gravel closed the curtain on the Life Time Grand Prix Series on Saturday. Matthew Beers and Sofia Gómez Villafañe took the men's and women's victories, respectively, in Bentonville, Arkansas, where inclement weather led officials to shorten the races from 100 to 50 miles.
Villafañe's Big Sugar win was her second in a row in Bentonville after she won the Little Sugar MTB race last weekend. It also marks her third overall win in the series as she finished the year rather comfortably ahead of Cecily Decker in second with Melisa Rollins in third overall.
On the men's side, Unbound and Little Sugar winner Cameron Jones finished fifth at Big Sugar, good enough to secure the men's overall title in a remarkable turn of events given that the New Zealander was a wildcard entrant to the series.
It is also the first time in the four-year history of the series that Keegan Swenson has not won the overall title. Swenson opened the season with a win at Sea Otter and then took a fifth straight win at the Leadville Trail 100, but he finished fourth overall in the extremely tightly contested series standings, with Jones atop the leaderboard ahead of Simon Pellaud and Torbjorn Andre Roed.
