Tucson’s Sean Christian, California’s Anna Hicks win Saturday’s El Tour de Tucson

Christian, a Tucsonan, finished the 102-mile route with an unofficial “chip time” of 3 hours, 49 minutes, 1.2 seconds. Gilbert’s Damiano Cunego was 1.2 seconds behind Christian, and Ireland’s Cormac McGeough was third at 3:53:02.7.

Christian averaged 26.5 mph on his bike. 

Hicks, a native of San Luis Obispo on California’s central coast, was the top-finishing woman at 3:54:0.93. She narrowly beat out Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Jacqueline Larouche (3:54:10.1) and Bozeman, Montana’s Cecily Decker (3:54:12.3).

The El Tour win caps a successful year for Christian, 20. He finished 28th in the United States national championship of road racing; he was fourth among cyclists age 23 and under.

Hicks finished third at the Bariani Road Race in March.

Between 7,500 and 8,000 riders, including at least one from every state, were expected to take part in El Tour.

Riders competed in three distances and three “fun rides.” The 102-mile ride — organizers call it “The Century” — is the most popular of the routes. Nearly 40% of all riders had signed up for the longest distance. Nearly as many — 34% — had signed up for the 63-mile “Metric Century” ride, and 19% had signed up for the 32-mile “Metric Half-Century” ride. About 7% of the signups are for the “Fun Ride,” one of the unique events during El Tour day. Many fun-riders are kids; they can choose between distances of 10 miles, 5 miles or 1 mile.

This story will be updated.