Jeep King of the Mountain World Professional Mountain Bike Championships Announces Plans for 2005 Season

VAIL, Colo. - April 11, 2005 - The Jeep® King of the Mountain Series has announced plans for the upcoming World Professional Mountain Bike Championships. The season-long series will feature the world's top male and female professional mountain bike racers competing for the richest prize purse in the industry.

An elite field of international professional racers - six women and six men - have been pre-qualified to participate in the Jeep King of the Mountain Series. The balance of the 16-athlete field - two men and two women - will qualify for each event in the Series based on points earned in National Off-Road Bicycling Association (NORBA) events, allowing these wildcard entrants a chance to compete against the best of the best for a shot at the coveted title.

The Jeep King of the Mountain Series utilizes the exclusive "Y" course that combines the two most dramatic and popular forms of mountain bike racing into one unique discipline. Competitors begin the race on separate slalom courses (the prongs of the Y) before converging midway to a single course (the bottom of the Y). In the bottom section, racers must navigate a series of banked turns, tabletops, step-down jumps and rollers before the track climaxes with an all-out sprint to the finish. The "Y" has been described as the ultimate format for mountain bike racing as the overall winners must have a diverse set of skills to win the coveted Jeep King of the Mountain title, symbolic of the World Professional Champion.

World Professional Champions are crowned based on a system of cumulative points earned throughout the Jeep King of the Mountain Series, which will be formally announced in the coming weeks. In addition to competing for Jeep King of the Mountain honors, the racers will be battling for a share of the record prize purse, which tops $100,000, and the keys to a new 2006 Jeep Commander.

This year's event will continue its tradition of attracting the world's best racers, including top national and international athletes such as defending Jeep King of the Mountain Champion Wade Bootes of Australia, Mike King of San Diego, Calif., and the number one ranked mountain bike racer in the world, Michal Prokop of the Czech Republic, on the men's side. On the women's side, the event will feature defending champion Katrina Miller of Australia, Tara Llanes of Los Alamitos, Calif., and the number one ranked mountain bike racer in the world, Anneke Beerten of Holland.

Each of the three Jeep King of the Mountain Series events will be broadcast to a national television audience. The first two one-hour specials will be nationally syndicated during the June, July and August time period. The finals will air on CBS Sports in October 2005.

The Jeep® King of the Mountain was established in 1993. Jeep® is the title sponsor for the Jeep King of the Mountain Series. The Jeep King of the Mountain World Professional Mountain Bike Championships (www.jeepsports.com) is the sister competition to wintertime's prestigious Jeep King of the Mountain Skiing & Snowboarding World Championships, now in its 12th season as the most prestigious event in professional snow sports. Other marketing partners include Columbia Sportswear, John Paul Mitchell Systems, Mopar and Sirius Satellite Radio.

Posted by bikergrl at April 12, 2005 10:24 PM

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