Tour of Elk Grove on without the disabled veterans' race

Hundreds of professional and amateur cyclists will converge this weekend for the seventh Alexian Brothers Tour of Elk Grove, but one notable group will not race this year.

The tour, which features 16 professional and amateur races beginning Friday, won't include a race for adaptive athletes and disabled veterans, said Barbara Matsukes, spokeswoman for The Heart Of A Marine Foundation, which sponsored the inaugural race last year, drawing 12 participants.

Matsukes said foundation officials decided to cancel the Adaptive Athlete/Disabled Veteran Race for 2012 after consulting with Elk Grove Mayor Craig Johnson and Chicago Special Events Management, which organizes the tour. They hope to bring it back next year.

Matsukes said organizational issues scuttled the race, including not having enough athletes for the different categories of disabled racing as set forth by the U.S. Handcycling Federation.

“In doing our research, we found that there are different levels of disability for competition,” she said. “The levels of disability for the races were difficult to fill with athletes.”

Perhaps race officials cast too wide a net hoping to get disabled veterans and adaptive athletes from throughout the country rather than focusing on the Midwest region, she said.

“There are so many other competitions, venues, events all over the country that do coincide with the Tour of Elk Grove, so you've got to get to these athletes early,” Matsukes said.

Johnson said he is optimistic the race will return in 2013 as The Heart Of A Marine Foundation has been a “phenomenal” sponsor.

“They were going to be very generous,” Johnson said, alluding to this year's proposed race purse of $10,000 — a significant increase from last year's $3,000 purse. “Obviously, we'd like to have seen it again this year. We understand the difficulty and logistics of putting it together.”

Matsukes said race organizers hope to open the race up to all disabled veterans and adaptive athletes next year. “We look forward to reorganizing and bringing an even better event in 2013.”