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Anniston's annual cycling event earns tourism honor, spot on national racing tour By Joe Medley The Sunny King Criteriums/Cheaha Challenge has made the top 10 tourism events in Alabama, and it's on the USA Cycling's National Racing Calendar. The annual Sunny King Criteriums/Cheaha Challenge cycling weekend, held in Anniston and Piedmont, has been selected as one of Alabama's top 10 tourism events for 2006. The event also made USA Cycling's National Racing Calendar. The NRC is a collection of the top races in the country, including Tour de Georgia and the newly formed Tour of California. The King Criteriums/Cheaha Challenge listed ninth on the Alabama list. Alabama Speed Week in Birmingham and Talladega tops the list compiled by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism & Travel, followed by the Red Snapper World Championship in Orange Beach and the Regions Champions Tour Event in Hoover. Bellingrath Gardens Chrysanthemums Extravaganza in Mobile ranks fourth, followed by Rogersville's Eagle Weekend, Huntsville's Big Spring Jam, the Outdoor Alabama Expo, the exhibition "Mummy: The Inside Story" at the Gulf Coast Exploreum in Mobile, the Sunny King Criterium/Cheaha Challenge and the Southern Wildlife Festival in Decatur. The Alabama Bureau of Tourism & Travel staff selected the 10 from 1,300 events listed in the 2005 Alabama Calendar of Events, said director Lee Sentell. King Criteriums/Cheaha Challenge organizer Mike Poe said he was "surprised" that the even made the top 10. "I'm glad," he said. "I think it's good for a different kind of sport like cycling to start getting more in the mainstream, and I think it's good for the area to be recognized in a positive way." The USA Cycling Calendar is limited to 44 events in 22 states. Other events were bumped this year, making room for the King Criteriums/Cheaha Challenge. "We were real excited about that (making the calendar)," Poe said. "We had applied for a couple or three years and not been selected. This year, we were selected. "That's real significant, because it puts us as kind of a national event and on kind of a national radar screen, and so we're automatically on a lot of calendars and things like that." This year's criteriums will be held May 6 in downtown Anniston, and the Cheaha Challenge will start on the morning of May 7 at the Piedmont Civic Center. The criteriums especially have drawn elite cyclists and teams preparing for the Tour de Georgia the following week. This year, the criteriums will fall after the Tour de Georgia, but making USA Cycling's calendar made the criteriums a points event. Poe said the promotion in status will help to draw more elite teams and cyclists. "These teams are trying to race for points, so they're trying to hit all of the NRC events they can," he said. "We'll automatically be on their schedules. "What's also good is the scheduling of our race is in a string of other criterium races in Georgia and South Carolina, so there are going to be six races in seven days, and ours will be one of them. These people can skip from race to race." Growth in the criteriums and activities surround them has prompted organizers to establish the Noble Street Festival, which will include the criteriums, Red Diamond Restaurant Tour, Noble Street Music Festival and the Peddling Art Show. Red Diamond was added as a sponsor for the restaurant tour this year. The event was known as A Taste of Noble.
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