US juniors face $4,000 cost to race Worlds; former World Champion Megan Jastrab rallies support

Olympic bronze medalist and three-time junior World Champion Megan Jastrab has launched a GoFundMe page to help ensure junior women cyclists can compete for Team USA at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, this September.

The event will be the first UCI Road World Championships held in Africa, making it historic, but also significantly more expensive for athletes and their families. Jastrab’s goal is to raise $10,000, which should cover a majority of the fees and travel expenses required for the top American junior cyclists to race in Rwanda.

“I just wanted to help the juniors who were selected to be able to have the opportunity, if they couldn't afford to make it to Worlds,” said Jastrab about how the fundraiser came to be. “I was in contact with USA Cycling and heard the extra cost of going to Rwanda for Worlds this year. It was possible they weren't going to be able to send a full team.

“I'm not setting this fundraiser up to say USA Cycling isn't doing things correctly because it's not a for-profit business. There are so many categories, so many disciplines, and they can't fund everything. This was just to offset that and to really focus on the junior women, because that's the pipeline I came through.”

Jastrab knows that pipeline first-hand. In 2019, Jastrab won the junior world championship road race ahead of the likes of Julie de Wilde, Blanka Vas and Noemi Rüegg in her first year of junior racing, a rare feat in both the men's and women’s fields. That win set her up for a career that has brought her to the Women’s WorldTour with Picnic PostNL.

“I only had one year as a junior because my second year was cancelled due to [the COVID-19 pandemic], but the first year I took every opportunity I could,” Jastrab said of her junior career. “That was racing Nations Cup with the national team, doing track worlds, doing road worlds, and that was really special. It can really jumpstart your career if that's where you want to go from there.”

With track success paired with her junior Worlds win, Jastrab has a lot to thank USA Cycling for. With that platform and with the funding that existed in that pre-pandemic period, Jastrab was the poster child for what USA Cycling was hoping to accomplish.

“At that point, I don't remember what the other juniors were having to cover, but the national team trips or other trips with the track program were funded. I received grants from different organisations, and it was a collective effort to make sure all these trips were funded. So I was able to see all the work that goes on behind the scenes to fund these trips.”

How funding at the junior level works, currently:

Funding structures in the United States are frequently changing. As domestic road racing in the United States continues to decline, so too does the available funds. We looked into the latest criteria for juniors in the USA Cycling team selection and the allocated funding. While the standards for selection remain generally the same, the ability to gain funding is much higher than when Jastrab raced juniors in 2019.

For the men’s and women's junior road race and time trial, there are two funding levels, both of which provide the framework for team selection. Funding Level 1 applies to the two allocated time trial spots and up to five spots for the road race. If a rider gains an automatic selection for the time trial, chances are they will also compete in the road race, although that isn’t specified.

Only those riders who finish in the top ten in the previous year’s World Championship are eligible for the Level 1 funding. These athletes receive up to $2,200 for one economy-class airfare ticket, including baggage fees. USA Cycling will also provide competition and casual clothing, lodging and food, ground transportation at event location, all mechanical/race support, and travel insurance throughout the duration of the event.

Level 2 team selection and funding applies to those who won the junior national road race or time trial, or finished in the top-three of the Nations cup. For those athletes, the expenses are flipped:

Athletes will be responsible for paying a service fee of $2,000.00, which covers competition and casual clothing, lodging/food, ground transportation at event location, all mechanical/race support, and travel insurance throughout the duration of the event with USA Cycling. Athletes are also responsible for their own airfare and baggage expenses.

For reference, plane tickets from major U,S. airports to Rwanda range between $1,100 to $1,400, which is in addition to the $2,000 fee that goes to USA Cycling for on-the-ground equipment and support. Adding in luggage and the 2025 Worlds will cost just shy of $4,000 for the event.

This year, Ashlin Berry, the highly touted junior who has already signed a contract with Visma-Lease a Bike, is the only rider who will be a Funding Level 1 rider for the United States in the junior races. Everyone else will have to pay to race, even the likes of Lidia Cusack and Alyssa Sarkisov on the women’s side, and Peyton Burckel for the men, who were all in the top 15 at junior worlds events last year.

What makes all of this more challenging for the selected riders is that all the other races in the year could be subsidised by their junior programs. Those programs do have budgets and sponsors to help young riders get exposure, but Worlds is separate. Trade team budgets can’t cover riders' expenses when they race for the U.S.

All of this is the background that made Jastrab’s fundraiser such an easy decision to organise. With $10,000 of extra funding, the trip to Rwanda becomes so much easier for the five young women who need to make the trip for their careers to flourish.

“After COVID, USA Cycling took a hard hit from that, so I see how now the funding is a bit more limited,” Jastrab said. “You can see that through the men's program as well. Over the years, finding that stability is really hard in cycling, as you can see at all levels, not just at the national team level. I think that at the end of this year, three women’s pro teams are going away.”

“It's just really hard to keep it going, so to see the support of something like this to help the junior women is really special.”

USA Cycling Junior Selections

Women

• Lidia Cusack (Chevy Chase, Md.; Tofauti Everyone Active Majaco) - Road Race, Time Trial
• Liliana Edwards (Washington, D.C.) - Road Race, Time Trial
• Alexis Jaramillo (Colorado Springs, Colo.; Sonic Boom Racing) - Road Race
• Alyssa Sarkisov (North Potomic, Md.; dcdevo Racing Academy) - Road Race

Men

• Kashus Adamski (Bloomfield, Mich.; Hot Tubes Cycling) - Road Race
• Ashlin Barry (Toronto, Ont.; JEGG - SKIL - DJR) - Road Race, Time Trial
• Beckam Drake (Amarillo, Tex.; Hill’s Sport Shop) - Road Race, Time Trial
• Enzo Hincapie (Greenville, S.C.; EF Education-ONTO) - Road Race
• Braden Reitz (Carmel, Ind.; Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Newgen) - Road Race