Team Twenty24 becomes Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty24
Longstanding women’s Olympic development squad Team TWENTY24 has a new title sponsor and a new base of operations.
On Saturday during a Facebook Live presentation, team owner Nicola Cranmer announced the new Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY24.
The Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge (Visit VBR) tourism chamber steps in as a three-year title sponsor for the 40-rider junior and professional teams.
Team TWENTY24, which changes its name to coincide with every Olympic cycle, was formed in 2005 as a pathway to the 2012 London Olympics for female cyclists. Since then, the team’s programming has evolved to support junior and elite riders across various disciplines, including road, track, mountain biking, gravel, and eSports.
Related: Nicola Cranmer on why Team Twenty24 is racing gravel
Since its inception 17 years ago, Twenty24 athletes have earned 14 Olympic and Paralympic medals.
During the presentation on Saturday, Cranmer told the audience in Roanoke that she had many fond connections to the region, notably former TWENTY24 rider Chloe Dygert’s double junior world championship victories in 2015.
“So my first experience in Virginia was a winning one,” Cranmer said.
Former professional cyclist Shelley Olds also attended the presentation on Saturday to express her support for the new partnership. Olds graduated from Roanoke College and raced with the TWENTY12 team before attending the 2012 London Olympics.
This TWENTY24 sponsorship marks the second time that Visit VBR has made a bold investment in cycling. In 2018, Virginia’s Blue Ridge region earned International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA)'s Silver-Level Ride Center designation and subsequently staked a claim as "America's East Coast Mountain Biking Capital," solidifying the region as a mountain biking destination. The Visit VBR partnership with TWENTY24 is an effort to further enhance the regions’ outdoor recreation brand by showcasing the additional disciplines of road and gravel cycling.
