Justine Barrow joins the elite ranks at SEVEN

Our elite women’s field for SEVEN Gravel Race 2024 has taken another big step up, with reigning Australian Gravel National Champion, Justine Barrow (Roxsolt Liv SRAM), signing on to race. Barrow will take her place on the elite start line alongside, Peta Mullens and WA’s Cassia Boglio, who both placed second and third respectively at the Gravel Nationals in June 2023.

Barrow has already tasted victory in the UCI Gravel World Series, taking out top honours in the 2022 Gravelista in Beechworth. As an endurance and climbing specialist, Barrow explained that she had SEVEN FOMO in 2023, missing out on competing as she was racing in the gruelling US Life Time Grand Prix series. She said the formidable Unbound Gravel ‘got her’…and she’s going back for more. After recent shoulder surgery, she is seeing SEVEN as a ‘warm up’ to her 2024 US gravel campaign, which will commence with the Gravel Locos on May 18th and Unbound Gravel in June.

Her climbing prowess certainly bodes well for her performance at SEVEN, which gives her 3200 vertical metres of climbing to tackle over 125km. (BTW: There is only one race in the 27-event UCI Gravel World Series with more climbing than SEVEN, and it’s in the Swiss Alps!)

In an interview with AusCycling, ahead of her 2023 US gravel odyssey, Barrow explained, “I’ve found it (gravel) is suited to me: the endurance aspect, and there are often lots of climbs. It’s a little more honest and there are generally less places to hide, and I perceive that to be beneficial to me.”

Well Justine, we have thirteen categorised climbs in store for you at SEVEN this year…we can’t wait to see you take them all on!

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Sponsor: SRAM @SRAMroad

Header image credit: Kristina Vackova

Inset image credit: @velophoto.tx